With the Gods All Gone
by takethislight
Summary: From the jaws of a triumphant victory comes a bleak, inescapable truth--heroes are so rare that their work is never truly done. Commander Jane Shepard, after defeating the Collector threat, is asked to take on another enemy; one not so easily defeated.
1. Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine

There they stood: an intergalatic mock-up of the Dirty Dozen, smoking craters in armor, unshowered, eyes drawn with fatigue, still smelling of bitter, dried blood, the sharp acerbic sting of Medi-gel, and the burning ozone of expended clips. They quieted immediately, all eyes on the woman who strode into the room, stripped off her helmet and tucked it beneath her arm.

"I'm impressed. I'm _amazed,_" she started, projecting her voice to carry through the empty hangar, face a mask of firm impassiveness, eyes deceptively bright with adrenaline, and something much deeper and fiercer; pride. She bore a deep gash across one cheek from the corner of her mouth to one ear that hadn't been patched yet, her hair lay in sweat-soaked curlicues, unwashed.

"I don't care what planet, what race, what organization you call your home. I don't care where you came from or who put you there. Today, you—_all _of you—put your fear aside and acted anyway, and acted greatly."

Jack, grinding teeth against a nasty-looking lump on her side that probably contained broken ribs, leaned over sideways and was supported by Tali, who offered her shoulder and a reassuring arm.

"We knew not all of us would be coming back, so I asked you to give them hell. You tore in there like demons, kicked down doors, lit fires, blew it up and left the place in fucking shambles. They were target practice. We were told over and over this was a suicide mission—but what they didn't tell us was that it was that the suicide was for the Collectors to try to stand against us. THAT is what I'm talking about, ladies and gentlemen. THAT is why you're the best, and that is why I wanted you, and you specifically."  
Grunt turned and punched Garrus excitedly in the shoulder. Garrus smirked, and nudged him companionably, acknowledging his first-time rush of triumph.

"We didn't lose a single person. You acted as a unit. A well-oiled machine, a single entity with one intent in mind—to take that place down. And we did. I am incredibly proud of each and every single one of you, and I am humbled to call you my squad. That's all I wanted to say."

"We _are _pretty good," Garrus agreed, loudly. "Handsome, too."

"A god-damned intergalatic sucker punch, is what we are," Jack agreed, "Fuck them and fuck their cocksucker Reaper buddies. They're next."

"Agreed," Thane added, hands folded behind his back.

"Handed them their bug asses! CRUNCH!" Grunt roared, triumphant, and the group laughed; a few clapped, and companionable chatter rose up again, at a notably excitable pitch. Joker, hunched on the edge of a shallow container, hopped carefully from his perch and limped over.

"I'm all for celebrations, but what now, Commander?" He asked, handing over a small data pad. Shepard gave it a cursory glance. "The Illusive Man can't be too happy that you blew up his new toy."

"Cerberus gave me a great gift on loan, and I repaid them on their terms. My term of service is up." Shepard replied, crossing her arms. She was a tall woman, maybe 5'10", taller than Joker was on his best day. "If any of you decides to stay with them, there's no bad blood. You're free now, and that includes free to re-assess your loyalties."

"Hm... yes," Garrus said, tapping his mandible idly. "Human loyalists, history of terrorist activity, noted for blackmail and espionage. Where do I sign up?"

Joker shook his head. "Ah, come on. My loyalties are with you, Commander—provided we don't have to brace for complete and total annihilation _again. _Well, for at least a week."

"Alright, enough of this self-congratulatory crap," Shepard said, trying not to smile, and waved her hand. "I want everyone to shower up, get some rest, and meet me in the mess at nineteen hundred. I want a drink and I'll be damned if I'm celebrating alone after what you sons of bitches put me through to get here."

* * *

The armor was dependable, sturdy, and had saved Shepard's life many times over. But it was _hot—_no part of it breathed, and it wasn't uncommon for her to snap and peel parts of it off to reveal that it had bruised her in interesting patterns while clamping down to keep outside forces out. Right now, she was solely concerned with getting out of it to give her poor calloused feet a rest, and wash off the sweat in her hair and under her arms. Her footfalls against the metal grating of the floor rang down the hallway—_Good acoustics_, she thought and caught herself chuckling in slap-happy fatigue. She placed a hand against the cherry red holographic lock on her door, entered her personal code, and then stood back as it obediently slid open.

There was a figure standing before her aquarium, either staring into the water or simply watching the fish, silhouetted against the calm blues of her cabin, hands folded behind its back.

Shepard was careful to continue completely inside the room, close the door and lock it, before tousling her hair with her fingers. "I'll never understand how you get here so fast," she said, "or how you learned my code."

"One has to have his secrets," Thane replied, and Shepard was half convinced he was being serious, before he glanced at her with a small smile. "Are you well?"  
"Well, but sweaty. Tired." Shepard tossed him her helmet, and he caught it easily, set it down on her desk. "How was the speech?" She asked, pausing to contemplate before finding the seam of her gauntlet with her fingertips, pulling, and snapping it open. She worked on the buckles and joints holding her exo-suit's arm plating together, dismantling the jaw of the braces with nimble, practiced speed.

"Compelling, as usual. Are you are hurt?" He said, turning to place a hand against her jaw and gently tilt her face to get a better view of the slash on her cheek.  
"Maybe, but Chakwas is still recovering." Shepard mused, and tilted her face back down. "Too late for medi-gel... it's already started knitting, thanks to the suit. Is it bad?"

"Your eye was missed by inches. The blood makes it look more severe than it seems to be."

There was a beat of comfortable silence. The calm sounds of the aquarium bubbling in her ear, the rough, hot texture of his hands on her skin lulled her into temporary complacency; against her better judgment, her body went on autopilot, closing her eyes and leaning her face against his touch, with a relaxed sigh.

"I should shower," she said, and to her own ears her voice was dreamlike, far away. "I'm falling asleep standing up..."

He moved in and placed a firm, chaste kiss against her uninjured cheek. "Then rest. We will speak later."

"You should stay with me," she added, attempting optimistic lightness, and didn't like the neediness that resulted in its place.

Thane looked at her. "I'm not sure that's wise, siha."

She knew that even if she'd asked him to stay, he most likely wouldn't; military ships with rules against fraternization were hotbeds of gossip on their own. A place like Cerberus, where people _could in fact_ be fucking and it not be against any sort of official statute—all you had to do was be seen in the same place more than once and the rumor mill would start up in earnest. He'd insisted on skulking, avoiding meeting in the same place twice in a row to preserve her reputation, to say nothing of the respect of her squad; Shepard knew that if they knew she'd been romancing one of her subordinates, accusation of favoritism would soon start flying. Perhaps jealousy of other stripes.

In any event, it was best avoided until it couldn't be, and Thane knew this. He avoided putting her in a precarious position of being discovered. It was better this way—plus, she would be lying if she said the secrecy didn't excite her. He was an undoubtedly dangerous man, and seeing him in secret piqued silly parts of her suppressed romantic nature that hadn't been allowed free reign since she was an adolescent. It was their little secret, and well, the forbidden made even the most boring, vanilla relationship seem sexier.

"Goodnight," he added, flexing his fingers under her jaw in a gentle, affectionate caress, and turned on his heel to depart for her door. Jane reached out abruptly, grabbing one of his hands. He turned to look at her, openly quizzical, and stopped in his tracks.

"Thane--I'm glad that... I'm glad that you're... I'm just happy that the worst didn't happen. Thank you for coming back." She swallowed. "To me."  
After it was out, it occurred to her that there were multiple wrong ways one could take this statement of gratitude, if one was inclined to do so. He had a way of making her doubt her own words, his direct nature cutting through her diplomatic bull and getting straight to the point, good or bad. Thane simply gave her fingers an appreciative squeeze, and released them.

"I came to tell you the same," he replied. "Rest well, siha."

The ambient light in her chambers turned his skin from a green to almost a seafoam color, reflected thoughtfully in the dark spheres of his eyes. He looked almost supernatural against this backdrop of ambient light and metal lattice gridwork, as if this was an environment in which Drell would naturally roost.

She watched him depart into the bright hallway, a swooping, almost slithering figure cutting through the clinically bright deck light, smaller than would be expected from his fearsome reputation, but solid and straightbacked. The door closed with a whoosh behind him and she stood here, listening for conversation outside her door. Nobody should be up here but her, and apparently nobody had been, or at least hadn't said anything to Thane on his way out. Simply his light footsteps, the shunting of the elevator door, and its appreciable _ding_ as it descended the floors. Good. She let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

Jane stripped and showered as quickly as she could, cleaned her wound (it _was_ bad, about a quarter of an inch deep, straight through the fatty tissue and into the muscle, and Thane was right. It _had_ landed maybe three inches below her eye, which made her nauseous upon realization of how close that one stray bolt had come to ending her life again). She didn't bother to dress before crawling beneath her sheets and immediately becoming pinned in place under the weight of her exhausted body, which she could have sworn, by now, weighed as much as the trunk of a great redwood tree.

"EDI," she slurred, slapping the bright azure-blue button on her bedside table. "Wake-up call for--"

"Mr. Krios has set your wake-up call for seventeen-thirty, Commander," EDI replied, "your non-urgent messages have been held."

Jane laid there on her bare stomach, puzzling this in her exhausted stupor, then smiled a little. "Thanks, EDI."

"Of course, Shepard. Logging you out."

Sleep came, heavy and thick, dreamless and colorless hours passing in what seemed like the blink of an eye.

* * *

Tali hiccuped.

The table erupted in a thunder of frustrated grimaces, sighs, and one particularly excited table-punch. Tali apologized, tittering, and hiccuped again, clamping her hands over the blinking vocal magnifier on her mask.

"I don't wanna hear it, you pussies," Grunt rumbled, laughing in his chest. "Another shot, come on! Tag it, Jacob!!"

"Girl, you're gonna kill us," Jacob protested, amused, half-drunkenly serving up ten more shots. "I thought you could hold your liquor? Come on." He handed Tali the first small, silver shot glass, and she squeaked a tiny 'thank you' in his direction between giggles.

Distributed, the shot "glasses" were clinked together, and down the hatch the shots went—Garrus slammed his cup rim-down on the table and shook his head, Jack stared at hers with a breed of hostile dislike before drinking back its contents, and Thane quietly tossed back his share, grimacing against its acrid aftertaste before stacking his cup on top of Garrus'. Kelly lay with her head on her arms, asleep after the first three, while Shepard and Chakwas cheered again, happily disposing of the multi-amino whiskey with a spate of excited girlish laughter. Samara's alcohol was swallowed patiently, deliberately, and she was so quiet that most forgot her presence under the flailing punches and yelling. Joker looked like he might be sick. Jacob looked bored, head leaned on a hand, pushing up one half of his face in a comical bunch.

"Whose idea was this?" Garrus laughed, indicating Tali, inadvertently crowding into Thane's space with his long arms. "We'd better have a DD, or this night may get ugly. I mean... uglier than ME. And that's... _bad_."

"No way anyfuckin'thing could get uglier than you, Dinobot," Jack replied, serving herself another shot from the bottle, impatiently.

"Hmm... is that really how you feel, Jack?" Garrus prodded teasingly, leaning his long arm across the table to swipe her shot and disposing of it in one smooth motion. "I think our little psychopath doth protest too much."

Jack shot him a look. "I'm not into fucking birds, but that's just personal preference, dick lover. Now give me back my glass."

"Heh. Can't I change your mind? _I_ may be the raptor here, but I bet you _you'd_ be the one singing when I got done with you." He tossed the glass back to bounce with a series of "tings" along the table and roll in a half-moon in front of her.

The group erupted into a chorus of "ooooh"s, hands clasped over mouths, and Garrus was a recipient of a rowdy, supportive push on both shoulders. Tali patted Jack's shoulder; Jack shrugged it off fiercely.

"BOTH OF YOU! BOTH OF YOU... shut up right now." Joker protested, swallowing a sudden, heaving burst of dinner trying to return back up his esophagus. He turned to the side, blocked by Grunt's huge form, and pushed on him futilely. "Move it, Thing, I gotta go hop on the porcelain bus."

Grunt stared back down at him, and laughed a bitter, territorial laugh that was half grimace and half threat.

"I'm serious man, don't make me puke on you. I've got too much to live for."

"Grunt, let him out," Shepard said, drunkenly waving her hand in a gesture that more said "no thank you" than anything else. "I'm not cleaning up any puke tonight, and I'd rather Joker's head stay where it is for the time being."

Tali hiccuped. Another rolling groan and a few laughs erupted, and Jacob sighed, long-suffering, before dishing up ten more shots.

"I'm _sorry!_" She insisted, breaking into another round of girlish, slaphappy giggling. "Heehee... keela, I am _sloshed_."

Shepard broke from her jubilant reverie with Chakwas to take a look around the bar. Artless and probably the cheapest drinking establishment there was on the Citadel, Hangnail had the esteemed reputation of being the only watering hole in the Zakera Ward, and if that didn't earn your trust, it had a maze of maintenance "alleyways" behind its back exit that led to a number of warehouses. These alleys were famous for hosting drug deals, shootings, and at least a monthly airlocking. Shepard paid that no mind, for now—she wasn't here to clean up, she was here to drink, maybe to fight, and to possibly get thrown out. She was a Marine; this was the naturally-occurring order of things when alcohol was introduced to one's system, no matter how level-headed the Marine in question was in sobriety.

The establishment was one big gunmetal pillar with plain polished-metal tables strewn throughout. No dancers, no fancy lighting, but the music was decent and the barkeep usually didn't alert C-Sec unless the display windows got broken. Smokey, and sleepy, despite its penchant for attracting rowdy military types who were keen on being the only rowdy military types in attendance, it was a decent drink if you were with friends, or people who would otherwise walk you back to your transit.

"I need some air," Shepard said, teetering to her feet. "You guys are too much at one time. I'll be back." Chakwas extended a hand and the two exchanged a quasi-drunken high five as Shepard shuffled by, clearing her hair from her eyes on the way out the door leading to the maintenance alleys at the back of the establishment. Samara warned to be careful; Shepard said she would.

"Will she be alright out there?" Kelly asked, then yawned, kitten like.

"If she's not, we're all fucked," Grunt said, shoving in next to her, almost twice her size, all teeth, staring eyes and rough skin plates; he looked like a textbook example of a predator ready to gobble up its prey, but Kelly didn't withdraw. "Whatever takes Shepard out would bring the damn galaxy down on its ass. Drink more." He shoved a shot glass at her, neglecting to note that it wasn't filled. Tali plucked up the bottle, and missed the glass by a good inch on attempting to fill it. Garrus leaned over, all gangly arms and shoulders, grabbed the neck, and guided it to the correct spot, messily tipping it back up after overpouring.

"Drink up, _champ_," Jack added, dryly, "you missed at least five."

Tali nodded, then hiccuped.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The musty smoke-and-bodies smell of the Hangnail immediately dispersed with the hydraulic hiss of the automated doors, and a cool puff of air blew on the fine sheen of sweat forming on Jane's forehead. The "alleys" were a maze of interlocking corridors flocked in white plasteel panelling, cast in grey and sometimes black shadow from the dim industrial lighting scattered every thirty meters or so. The air was hardly fresh, but it smelled clean—cleaner than the bar, anyway. Shepard walked for a few moments, breathing deep, and sat down to give her tilt-a-whirl balance-threatening buzz time to wear off. From inside the Hangnail in the distance, she could hear Jacob yelling something, Chakwas yelling something in reply, then uproarious laughter. She shook her head. Let them decompress; they definitely deserved it, to say nothing of needing it.

_I can't believe we actually beat them, _she thought, angling back to her feet, not completely sober but not quite so dizzy. She took an experimental step, then another, and then began tottering back the way she came, bootheels suddenly feeling higher than their humble two and a half inches. _The Reapers are still out there, sure, but they're incredibly weakened. My team... my people actually took out the Geth, and now the Collectors. I don't think there's anything in the 'verse that could stop us now, save our own overconfi--_

As she passed the mouth of a dark-grey alley, something lashed out. Too slow to respond because of her inebriated state and immersion in her own thoughts, her hand was snagged, and she stumbled sidelong, knocked off balance, expecting a kick or an elbow to her exposed ribs below her extended arm. She however received nothing aside from a firm hand resting on her waist, after releasing her fingers; another hand joined her other side, to still her balance. She blinked and stumbled upright, ready to dart back to give herself enough room to lash out and punch, or maybe throw a knee, when she recognized her captor and her close-quarters combat muscle tension, instantly ready to swing and elbow or lock a joint, released.

Thane.

Jane blew out a relieved sigh, and placed her hands on the sides of his face, leaning forward to kiss him soundly on the mouth. He returned the kiss, moving towards her, and bumped her back gently against the wall. "I told them I would check on Joker." He explained, unprompted, and kissed the tip of her nose, before returning to her mouth. She denied him this, pulling away.

"Did you?"  
"Yes." His eyes locked on hers; he smelled faintly of alcohol, predictably. "It helps he's occupied the men's restroom for the last twenty minutes."

"This whole secrecy thing is for the birds," Shepard sighed; her arms went over his shoulders, wrapping around his neck. Thane reached down and grabbed the underside of one of her thighs with his hand, lifting it to hook her leg around his waist. She pulled him to her and kissed him, hungry, the heat of his body and the strong yet plying pressure of his mouth rousing a steady, throbbing heat in her lower stomach. The immediate pressure against her hip suggested that the intent of this meeting was perhaps a precursor to something more than sweet gestures stolen in her quarters later, or perhaps a hot few minutes to tide one over until an appropriate window of time in the next week or two. She moved against him, the alcohol fueling her relative abandon, and his hands slid down her back to her rear end, grabbed her, and assisted in drawing her hips against his, keeping them both in time. He made a low, sighing noise in his throat, and drew his teeth across her bottom lip as she pulled away by a fraction of an inch, the breath taken from the both of them, coming only in soft, ragged gasps.

"Aggressive is a good look on you," she said, coy, playfully wriggling beneath him. Colors were beginning to distort, lines became sharper, perspective began to thin. It always happened when she kissed him; Drell emitted a neurotoxin, a natural defense that only seemed like a methanphetamine trip to humans, but it kicked in quickly. "Maybe we should drink together more often..."

He smiled a little, and shook his head, expression foggy and lust-bleary. "M--"  
Down the alleyway, a piercing, shrill scream broke over his words, and they both snapped their attention to the source of the sound, momentary passion immediately forgotten, at least mentally. Predatory, sharp, like hawks focusing on the squeak of a mouse scampering across a field, they both disengaged, narrowing eyes and straining ears to pick up any additional sound. Immediately, Thane's hands dropped to his sides and he pulled back, and Shepard turned, bending her knees and starting forward. She held up a hand which clenched into a fist to tell him to stay where he was. Thane stayed, watching, hand hovering near his rectangular pistol holster, dangling from his hip. Shepard walked forward, cautiously, ears perked for any other noises—gunfire, fighting, scuffles. She shook her head, blinking her eyes hard against the swimming aftereffects of the neurotoxin, not severe enough to reduce her to a babbling heap, but thinning the solidity of her surroundings enough to make her intensely annoyed at her romantic timing.

There was silence, and then ragged breathing, a female voice. Young—late teens. Panicked.

"No, please! I have money. I'll give it all to you, just let me--"

A thud. A gasping scream. Shepard held up two fingers and motioned sharply, twice, to the side. With a flap of leather coattails and light thumping of footfalls, Thane was gone, into the shadows he'd emerged from earlier. Shepard continued forward, drawing her Predator; she kneeled low, weapon pointed forward, and silently rounded the corner.

Three figures—a turian, a batarian, and a human. Former, both male, latter female. The turian had his hand buried in the woman's hair, pinning her against the wall. She screamed again, and he drew back, slamming his fist into her jaw, a gout of dark blood and displaced teeth pouring from her injured mouth onto her shirt, her feet, the ground. She started sobbing. He slapped her, hard, and then covered her mouth.

"Money... cute." The batarian chuckled. "You do realize what part of the Citadel you're in, right? We don't appreciate Squishes, especially not screamy Squish bitches who bring down the value of our lovely neighborhood."

_Squish? _Shepard thought, unable to place the colloquialism.

The woman was making noises now, half between a scream and a sob, and Shepard could recognize what she was saying even through her broken jaw and her muffled voice—_Please don't kill me._

The batarian simply made a disgusted, dismissive noise, and began to unbuckle his belt.

She had seen enough.

Shepard squeezed off a shot, blasting a hole in the paneling to the turian's immediate right. It worked; both of them took their focus off of the woman, to Shepard, and off of the darkness behind them.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Shepard called, mustering all the command her voice could propel in her current state, but the amount of alcohol in her system and her hormones, firing off in unfulfilled, disappointed anger, made this a task of almost Herculean proportions. Her nerves were on edge from a number of different stimuli, and if this was what it looked like, some indiscriminate violence was going to be done before the night was over.

The woman snapped her head to the side, eyes pleading, rimmed with tears, blood dripping onto her shirt between the turian's fingers. She started screaming what sounded like "help", and Shepard locked eyes with her, then put her attention back onto her assailants.

"Get the hell out of here, bitch," the batarian replied, with a detached, sneering tone. "This is a personal dispute. Or you're next, after this one."

"Nobody's next, because nobody is getting hurt today in the first place," Shepard responded, striding towards them purposefully, gun trained on the batarian's forehead. "Drop the hostage and _leave_ or this is going to get very ugly, very fast."

As if on cue, the darkness behind the turian started to gleam a dark, jeweled green; low to the ground, creeping like a spider, Thane approached from the larger man's far side, and grabbed his spindly wrists, yanking him in a semi-circle and twisting them hard. A dry snapping rung out in the throbbing quiet as both sets of bones were easily, swiftly broken. The woman, dropped to the ground, clutched her stomach and doubled over, sobbing. Thane, still holding the ends of the turian's broken arms, leaned back and delivered a hard kick to his midsection, knocking him into the batarian, who had started to draw a pistol. Both tumbled forward to the ground. The batarian's gun misfired, sending a shot into the air. Shepard brought her heel down on the pistol's butt, pinning his hand beneath it and crushing the heatsink in one fell swoop. She kicked it away, holstered her own gun, then leaned and grabbed him by his collar, dragging him out from under the fallen turian, who was howling with pain, cradling his broken wrists to his chest. Thane pressed his foot down on the turian's throat, bringing his howling to a stuttering, garbled stop, but his gasping breaths continued.

"You have five seconds to tell me exactly what's so personal as to necessitate rape, you piece of shit," she snarled, hauling him forward and slamming him into the wall again. "Or my friend here is going to break more than your wrists. _Talk._"

The Batarian tried to push Shepard back, overpower her, but her knee found his lower stomach with a loud, dull thud, and he doubled over. She picked him up, leaning into him, and slammed him into the wall again.

"Don't try anything like that again," Shepard warned, voice grave. "I pass tougher things than you in my stool. This is your last chance."

He swallowed, groaning, lips spit-shiny and grinned at her, a row of sharp daggerlike teeth reflecting the dim light from overhead.

"Squishes... all the same," he laughed, then coughed, phlegmy, and looked at her with a breed of open hostility that made her spine run cold. "Thinking you own the whole galaxy. Trying to run us over, take everything we've built and make it yours. You're in the wrong part of town at the wrong time. _Bitch._"

Shepard scrabbled for purchase, trying to put this, any of it, into perspective. "What did you call me?"

"Squish," Thane interjected quietly, while restraining the thrashing turian with his foot. "Racist terminology for humans. No exo-suits, natural armor, or metal plating." Then, with disdain, "Puerile."

"...you attacked this woman because she's a _human_?" Shepard balked, feeling her knuckles draining of blood, her grip was so hard. She shook him, his head bobbed stupidly. "Hate crimes? _Really_? This is because of the fucking council, isn't it?! Over politics?" _This is how you repay ME, a human, for saving all of you? Racist epithets and sexual assault?_ She thought, but did not say, and immediately dismissed it—making this personal wouldn't help anything.

The batarian snorted deep and spit a wad of mucus into her face. "FUCK your council, you dizzy Squish bitch. We didn't need you for thousands of years and we don't need you n--"

His sentence was cut short by Thane landing a notably ungraceful, incredibly aggressive punch dead-center on his jaw, audibly shattering the bone underneath layers of rubbery tendon, and crumpling him over, unconscious, in one clean hit.

Shepard took a shocked step back, suddenly suspending dead weight, and allowed the batarian's lifeless body to fall to the hard ground. She wiped the gummy spit from her cheek with a sleeve of her shirt and looked at Thane with a species of surprise that wasn't altogether pleasant.

It didn't go unnoticed. Thane's expression was pinched and angry, an emotion she wasn't used to seeing on him—it didn't suit him. "Perhaps that was unnecessary," he said, finally, and shook his hand to dull the pain in his knuckles. "My... apologies, Shepard."

"The least that he deserves," she finally negotiated with herself.

The turian, from below them, his voice now free, took a shocked swallow. "S... Shepard? Commander Shepard?? I--" He scrambled to his feet, which took longer that it normally may have, considering the loss of his hands, the trips, and the falling off balance that entailed. Her full title invoked, Jane met his eyes with a hard glare. "Hey man, this was _all his_ idea. I didn't want to take her back here, he's got info on me and—you gotta believe me." The craven fear in his voice was palpable—he started to back away. "I don't want no trouble from you, man, this is all a misunderstanding."

Shepard waved her hand in front of his face, her skin glowing bright gold, the frame of a jointed gauntlet projecting from seemingly nowhere. The hologram disappeared, and the turian looked at her, desperately confused.

"There. Now I have your clan markings. If I so much as hear about a turian from your clan harming a hair on the head of any 'Squishes' from here on out, I'm coming after you. And believe me, I have a way of getting what I want. Now MOVE."

The turian, sensing his salvation, turned and sprinted from the scene, leaving his batarian counterpart behind. Shepard approached the human woman, lying fetal on the cold, hard ground, still sobbing, and Thane followed suit. Shepard crouched, looking at the woman's jaw. Not broken, but it was damn close.

"Thane, go get Chakwas," Shepard said, turning to him. Thane nodded, turned on a heel, and was off. Shepard turned back to the form on the ground, and placed a hand on her shoulder. "You're safe now. Can you sit up?"

After a moment, she nodded, eyes squeezed shut. She took a breath and then propped herself up on a hand, her glossy black hair a fussed raven's nest of what it probably was before the attack. She pulled down her skirt, which had been disturbed by being thrown on the ground and luckily not by her captors, with an expression of morbid, tortured humiliation. She was gasping for breath.

"I thought..." she gasped, and sniffed deep, wiped her bloody mouth with the side of her hand. "I thought they were going to... oh, God..." The woman covered her face with both hands, and began to sob again in earnest.

"You're okay now. I'm here. Nobody's going to hurt you—we have a doctor coming, okay?"

The woman nodded from behind her hands.

"What's your name?" Shepard asked, gently. It took a solid thirty seconds for a reply, but one came, nevertheless.

"...A... Angela."

"Okay, Angela. I know you probably don't want to right now, but I'd like to eventually take you to one of my friends in C-Sec--"  
"No," Angela said suddenly, eyes as wide as dinner plates, shaking her head exaggeratedly. "NO, I can't. I can't—they'll come back. They know if you talk to C-Sec. They'll hurt us... they'll hurt me."

Shepard squinted, tilted her head. "Listen, Angela, nobody's going to hurt you. I'll make sure of that. Who is 'they'?"

"I'm a human. They'll hurt me if I go to C-Sec," she repeated, pleading, "please don't make me go."

_So they were targeting you because you're a human,_ Shepard thought, _how bad have things gotten while I've been away? I had no idea about any of this..._

Shepard opened her mouth to speak again, but a train of hurried footfalls clicking down the corridor quieted her questions. She unholstered her pistol, and held a hand out to Angela, put it on her shoulder. Around the corner jogged Chakwas, medical kit in tow, followed by Thane, and finally Garrus. The smallest of the three jogged over, stepping over the batarian's unconscious form, to Angela, where she kneeled and began to inspect her facial injuries.

"What a damn mess," Garrus mumbled, taking in the scene with an angry, clicking twitch of his mandibles. "Hey Sleeping Beauty, your hundred years are up," he rasped, giving the Batarian a swift, thumping kick in the ribs. The man on the ground awoke, gasping, and cursed loud enough to echo down the hall, clutching his side. Garrus leaned and grabbed his arm, hauling him easily to a standing position.

"There were two. I've got the turian's retinal scans on my omni-tool," Shepard offered, "I'll link them over, just tell me when."

Garrus looked at Shepard, then at the batarian. "Well, well, well. Unlucky day for you and your scum of a buddy, huh? I'm sure Bailey will love to see your smiling face. March, idiot." He gave the Batarian a solid shove, sending him stumbling, and the two were out of sight, down the corridor.

Thane leaned over to collect a small, off-white object from the floor. He presented it silently to Chakwas; one of Angela's teeth.

"Angela—you told me that they would hurt you if you implicated them or took them to C-Sec," Shepard continued, "and that they attacked you because you were a human?"  
Angela nodded, and sniffled. She had thick, dark eyebrows, and deep brown eyes, an extremely expressive face. "P-please tell your friend not to name me. We've already had enough trouble as it is."

Chakwas paused. "Your family?"

Angela shook her head. "Humans. Its... its been bad. Real bad, if you're a squish. I'm trying to make money to move out of this fucking place. I figured today would be my day to get 'locked... but I guess not."

"How long has this been going on?" Shepard asked, disbelieving.  
"Months... but the racism and the weird looks have been going on for years. Worse than normal. Ever since the Council was put in power... all humans, you know, up on the Presidium. It didn't used to be that way." She sniffed again. "They say it's some human supremacy movement, the police, and then the Council. The violence is a kinda new thing, though. Recent." Her face was suddenly a portrait of resentment, of pain. "They take it out on us. It's not our fault. We didn't do it. We didn't put them in there."

A solid, creeping chill gripped Shepard's spine, and traveled south. Bailey had told her that anti-human sentiment had gotten bad, and she'd assumed he meant politics, even defended the system that served as its catalyst; why hadn't he mentioned anything like this? Why hadn't he put a face, _faces,_ on the problem?

"Can I go?" Angela asked, shaky. "T-this is my fault, anyway. I shouldn't have been walking around down here after work. I can go to the doctor later." She got to her feet, gingerly straightening her hair with her fingers, and Chakwas leaned back on her haunches.

"I would like for you to stay, Angela," she said, comfortingly. "We can help you, and you may have internal bleeding."  
There was a beat of nervy, helpless silence, and Angela sniffed again, wiping the remaining blood from her face and looking at it. "N... no you can't. Thank you, whoever you are. I just need to get some sleep. I can take care of this tomorrow. I'm just tired. Thank you."

She brushed by Thane, who made no move to stop her, and quickly turned the corner, jogging out of sight, wiping her eyes.

The three stood, quietly.

"The anti-human sentiment is worse than it appears on the surface," Thane observed, "it has transgressed politics."

"This can't go on," Shepard said, firmly. "Not in our galaxy. We need to find out who these people are, who they're working for, and stop them."

Chakwas thought, and softly added, "And if they're not working for anyone, Shepard?"

_What if this really is the natural progression of your actions? What if these people are acting alone—what if there is no central, easy fix?_

Shepard swallowed, hard, the brackets around her mouth—put there by age, deepened by stress—darkening as her lips pressed into a line.

"...I don't know."


	2. The Messenger

EDI's soothing, elevator-like chime resonated gently. Shepard's attention was roused from her cup of coffee, barely after she'd tilted the mug to her lips, but before she was able to drink any of the precious caffiene it contained. "Specialist Vakarian requesting to see you, Commander."

Shepard thought briefly, wondering exactly what this was regarding, and if she was in any shape for company, even official company—she was still dressed in her pajamas, a pair of dark green cotton pants with an elastic waistband, and a plain white shirt. Her hair was pulled back into a nubby ponytail at the nape of her neck and though she wasn't a fan of makeup, usually, her relative slouchiness at the moment made her embarrassed for not wearing any just the same. She looked either half-asleep or ready to go to the gym, and neither were reflective of the clean-cut image she liked to project. Finally, she sighed, and swiveled her chair towards the door, crossing her legs.

"Let him in, EDI. I'm requesting automatic refusal of visitors before oh-eight hundred from now on, though, unless it's flagged as urgent."

"Noted, Commander. Releasing locks."

The telltale clinking thump of Garrus' toe-first gait resonated, disrupting the artificial white-noise silence. He looked around, and then turned to Shepard.

"_Nice_ digs. Being brass pays off, huh?"

"A little too big, " Shepard said, standing from the seat at her desk, "Not sure what to do with the extra space. What can I do for you, Garrus?"

Garrus nodded, acknowledging her down-to-business attitude, considering how early it was and how she was dressed. "I told you I'd return when we got a verdict in the case of the attack last night."

"They work fast," Shepard said, surprised. Garrus' mandibles twitched, almost imperceptibly, and he presented Shepard with a small, glowing data-pad. "Got some bad news."

Shepard balked; grabbed the pad harder than she intended, and whirled it around to read the report. "Are you kidding? _Inconclusive evidence_? We had two eye witness reports and DNA at the scene from both of them. Did they even investigate what happened?"

Garrus sighed, shrugged. "There's no victim; nobody's come forward to testify, and her DNA wasn't on the books, so they can't track her down for questioning. With no victim, it's hard to prove anything went on there besides a drunken fist fight," he said, "and with one of the races involved being a Drell, it's difficult to pin it on being a racially motivated assault, as least as far as humans are concerned. Open and shut case, to use bad vid lingo."

Shepard grimaced, and gave Garrus back his document reader. "I'm starting to see why you left that place," she said, taking a gulp of coffee.

"The whole system's rotten, right down to the core." He agreed, and tucked the reader back under an arm. "Anyway, I told you I'd relay the info as soon as I got it. Sorry it wasn't better news."

Shepard nodded. "Thanks for the update. Go back and nap off the rest of your booze."

Garrus chuckled. "_Not_ a bad idea. See you at chow, Shepard."

* * *

The mess hall has commonly full of people, and today was no different. As soon as the elevator doors slid open, Shepard was greeted with the chatty, heady din of a cafeteria that was probably full to near capacity; with no pressing missions, previously imperative responsibilities were easily abandoned for these sorts of breaks. Not the tightest way to run a ship, but she could allow them their re-adjustment, considering what most of them had just gone through, survived, and returned from. All hands on deck was a good thing as this point in time, even if those hands were idle.

Shepard rounded the corner to a small swell of supportive, companionable cheering from a few of the crew. She waved, a way of acknowledging and saying it wasn't necessary at once, and scanned the hall—surely enough, there was a table parked near Chakwas' medical bay at the right, where a few members of her team were sitting, poking at plates of what looked like eggs, and some kind of fruit. Thane excused himself from the table, plate emptied; he placed it on the counter, and passed by Shepard with a courteous nod, having to turn his body to the side and dodge close to her to keep a polite distance from the crush of people in the mess bay. Shepard returned the nod, face impassive, ignoring the flap of his jacket as it touched her hip in these close quarters, and helped herself to a seat beside Jacob, who grunted, and pushed his plate to her, wordlessly offering to share his food. His eyes were bloodshot. From the way they were carrying on, prattling as normal, nobody had noticed anything out of the ordinary.

"Everything alright, Mr. Taylor?" She asked, eyebrow raised, and plucked a piece of re-hydrated cantaloupe off of his plate.

"My head's killing me," he admitted, "Not as young as I used to be, that's for sure."

Tali and Garrus were sharing a bowl of some kind of white fruit that looked almost fuzzy, and had to be peeled of its hard, spiny outer shell before consuming. Tali had a clandestine flap of sorts, which may have been better compared to a chute, in her mask that food could be fed through without breaking the seal of her antibiotic field. Garrus shoved the fruit into his gullet without grace, long, sharp teeth and hinged jaws chomping much like a dinosaur. Chewing with your mouth closed was apparently not only _not_ a Turian custom, but may have been physically impossible. Shepard wasn't sure.

"You know, I haven't seen Mordin around," Shepard noted, looking around, "I don't think he came out last night, either."

"He's down in his lab." Jack said, eying her happily popping bowl of cereal with a breed of contemplation that might have looked more at home on a person much younger than she: it was almost a childish pout. "Hasn't left since we got back."

"I didn't see Miranda, either," Tali pointed out.

"_Paperwork_," Jacob's reply was almost a spit. He did little to mask his animosity. "Like always. Married to the job. That's the excuse, anyway."

Shepard shook her head. "Some people don't like parties, I guess."

"_Or_ busting up criminal scum," Garrus added, knocking one of the spiny fruit against the table to loosen up the seam on its shell. "Always a crowd pleaser. Right after kareoke, of course."

"What happened there, anyway? You were gone for a while." Tali asked, tipping the bowl towards her. There was one piece of fruit left; she and Garrus exchanged a glance, and she quickly snagged the the fruit as it rolled in the basin. "I let you have that one," he mumbled.

"I went for a walk, broke up a mugging," Shepard replied, purposefully leaving out the gorier details when they weren't necessary to an accurate account of the story, or realistically corroborated. She caught Garrus looking at her, with a searching, halfway disapproving look, but one that was openly calculating—_You know I'm going to have to lie to back this up too, now, right? _It said. Shepard gave him an even look in response, as if to tell him to deal with it. "Citadel isn't as safe as it used to be, I suppose." She finished.

"All in a day's work," Jack sneered, poking at her cereal with her spoon. "Always some asshole trying to ruin the fun."

"And this time it _wasn't _Garrus," Tali quipped, elbowing him in the side.

* * *

There are some things that remain constant; on the Normandy, Yeoman Kelly Chambers' bright smile and insistently sunny outlook was one. She stood at the bank of computers in the center of the arrowhead-shaped room, looking distinctly out of place when stood against its banks of turret controls, holographic imagery, and busy people speaking in clipped, curt military jargon. As soon as Shepard disembarked the elevator to take a look at her private terminal in the Combat Information Center, Kelly turned from her keyboard, and gave Shepard a wide, friendly smile. The bright light from overhead caught the hues in her naturally auburn hair and turned it into a fiery, unnatural shade of orange that coaxed her freckles out darker than they normally would be.  
"Commander," she said, and Shepard nodded her greeting. "You have 5 new messages. Both Samara and the Illusive Man would like to speak with you when you're finished. You're a popular woman this morning, Commander."  
"Speaking of popular, _you_ obviously got back alright last night," Shepard said, crossing her arms and leaning on the railing beside Chambers' terminal. "Am I to believe that you stumbled through the rough part of the Citadel by yourself, or did someone walk you back?"  
Chambers nodded, beaming. "Grunt saw me back. He's really very nice, once you get past his excitable exterior. Did you know that he likes music?  
"Can't say I did. Only you, Kelly," Shepard added, shaking her head in laughing disbelief and she entered her private terminal's password.  
Shepard ran the pad of her middle finger down the screen, and selected the button for her Private Messages. She skimmed them, quickly filing them into mental folders; two junk mail (one about sales at a souvenir shop where she'd been granted a discount, and yet another about penis enhancement, once again invoking Krogan as the standard for male virility, which struck her as funny, and then profoundly sad, in an ironic way, and she felt bad for laughing.) She deleted both, and upon noting the name on the next message, her blood ran prickly, her stomach dropped.

Udina. She opened the message.

_  
Commander Jane Shepard,_

_When it is convenient, you are to visit me at my office on the Presidium. Please call before you come. This is a matter of __utmost importance__._

"Fuck your utmost importance," Shepard muttered, and deleted the message. Kelly glanced over, surprised, and Shepard mumbled a half-apology.

The second message was titled "You Should See This".. Shepard scratched her eyebrow, and squinted, opened the message.

_Shepard,_

_Bailey. I have something you should see. Come ASAP._

Bailey, a high ranking C-Sec officer, had developed something of a friendly working relationship with Shepard and her crew, mostly due to his penchant for giving away important information and favors. If prompted she couldn't say she trusted Bailey, but he was no-bullshit enough to only call her over for something important. He'd stuck his neck out for her; she could see what he needed, when there was time. Nevertheless, today was apparently The Day for cryptic demands and artless, demanding banter, who things which left a dry, pissed-off taste in Shepard's throat. Her tolerance for the obscured and for the mysterious was famously low; for one as persuasive and prone to talking her way out of situations as she was, she likened being given anything but the absolute God's honest whole truth to being strung along or jerked around, and she didn't like it. She was a busy woman, and hadn't climbed the ranks of the Alliance military by dallying in shades of grey or by giving half-truths, especially if something was of the utmost importance.

Shepard deleted the message, and called to Kelly to enter an appointment to visit both Udina and Bailey sometime in the next three days, and to forward a reminder to EDI in her personal chambers. It felt a little strange not doing that by herself, and a more than a little pretentious, but Kelly was paid to, and seemed to genuinely enjoy her work, so Shepard kept her complaints mostly to herself.

The last message was untitled, the blinking "new message!" icon calling her attention. She opened it. No salutation, no signature, but simply:

_Look in your left pocket. _

Shepard could feel a slight blush creep onto her cheeks, and was careful to keep her eyes on her terminal in case someone was watching via overhead cameras (most notably, the same person whose private message creeping was most likely the reason they were kept so barrenly short and bereft of the detail in the first place). After deleting the message, Shepard screwed up her face and closed her eyes, reaching into her left pocket and finding the folded note left there. She then mock-sneezed into it, wiping her dry nose against the paper, and excused herself to the restroom nearby. She closed the door, locked it from the inside, and leaned against the wall, opening the paper.

_Next dock, clear 2 hours. Let me know when.  
T._

It was definitely Thane's handwriting; small, clearly printed. It wasn't his jacket on her hip in the mess bay... it was his hand. That sneaky son of a bitch.

She couldn't help but smile, stomach fluttery, and gave herself a moment to daydream before someone started to knock on the door, and she pretended to wash her hands in order to complete the cover. The girlish, excited feeling was pressed into submission by a nagging thought that had popped to the fore of her mind when she'd read Bailey's message; was it about the attack last night? Most likely what he had to say to her was directly related somehow--the timing was too convenient. And if it was related to the attack, it'd be related to the groundswell of anti-human violence.

Udina's abrupt "matter of utmost importance" made a whole lot more sense, all of a sudden.

_Fuck._

"Kelly," Shepard called, disembarking from the bathroom--a younger woman pushed in behind her, and immediately closed the door. "On second thought, contact Udina's and Bailey's offices and tell them I'm coming today."  
"Of course," Kelly agreed, "Is everything alright, Commander?"  
"We'll see," Shepard replied, turning to call for the elevator. She thought, a beat of contemplative but not uncompaniable silence, and then asked, "Any idea why the galaxy refuses to stay saved, Kelly?"  
Kelly considered this, and then shrugged, half turned around from her terminal. "With all due respect--that's your department, Commander." WIth a laugh, "I'm really just a glorified answering machine. Way above _my_ pay grade, ma'am."  
Shepard sighed. "Mine too." She mumbled, and boarded the elevator.


	3. Throwing Punches

"Shepard," Samara said, not turning from where she stood by the window, chin held high, posture proud and straight. She was a woman whose simple presence had a calming effect on most situations she found herself in. Her kinfolk, the asari, treated her, one of their oldest warriors, with awed reverence, and members of most other races regarded her with craven fawning crossed with abject fear. Both reactions dovetailed into a sort of personal bubble that surrounded her, filled with gentle, undisturbed quiet. It helped she was also incredibly beautiful—she had the body of a dancer, smooth blue skin and and piercing eyes—but even her physical charms took a back seat to the air of command that rolled off of her like a perfume, constant, always influencing those around her.

Jane continued into the room, closed the door.

"I was told you wanted to speak to me," Shepard said, keeping Samara's space intact, not moving closer until asked. There had always been a deep, abiding mutual respect between the two; they gave each other a wide berth, not out of dislike, but immense understanding. Understanding of responsibility to those you were sworn to protect, of conducting oneself with the honesty necessary to keep the job from driving you crazy, and when the safekeeping was that of an entire galaxy, the preciousness of time alone to reflect on the gravity of your choices.

Outside, the hazy pink and ash grey of a far-off, swirling nebula piqued the Justicar's interest. She turned her head slightly to watch it go by.

"I swore an oath, when I pledged my sword-arm to your cause," Samara started, voice gentle. "That your code would be my code; your morals, my morals; your decisions, my decisions."

Shepard nodded, though Samara could not see. She knew where this was going, but was intent on letting Samara get there on her own—no need to rush. "Yes, I remember. It was a great honor."

Samara took a deep breath in. "Only as my quarry can you declare when the cause no longer requires my assistance," she continued. "When you do so, I will be released from your command, and free to continue my journey." Samara turned, regarding Shepard with a breed of patient contemplation. "I will stay if you further require my presence, Shepard."

_But if not, I'd like to be released._ Shepard gathered from the intones; her mouth curled down in a slight frown.

"Understood." She paused a moment, not quite sure how to proceed; Shepard had the definite impression she was meddling in something much older and much more sacred than anything she'd known, and was near certain any attempt to show it the respect it deserved would be tantamount to religious blasphemy, but Samara made no move to interrupt. "Ceremony isn't exactly my strong suit, but I'll try."

Shepard closed the space between she and Samara, and Samara took a few steps forward, expression attentive and impassive all at once.

"Does it bother you if I kneel, Shepard?" Samara asked. She was sharp, and most likely picked up on the fact that when she joined the team, she'd knelt to Shepard, in public, head bowed like a deferent servant and it made Shepard uneasy. To Samara this meant nothing further than the deepest of respects, but to Shepard—a human, a species fiercely and sometimes illogically bent on its own supposed independence—it had surprising, embarrassing undertones, especially coming from one as respected, and feared, as Samara.

Shepard swallowed. "It's your choice, Samara." Samara nodded again, silently gliding into a low kneel at Shepard's feet, head tucked down.

"You've been a invaluable member of our crew," Shepard started, and considered reaching down to touch Samara's shoulder for lack of something to do with her hands rather than have them dangle aimlessly, but it seemed too intimate, so she didn't. "You've served as a guide for those with less patience or experience, a counsel for those unsure or in pain, and above all, you've acted swiftly and righteously, routing evil and injustice. We couldn't have asked more of you, Samara. You're free of your bonds to me, and free to return to us any time you like."

Samara's body began to crackle a brilliant, ebbing blue, vital azure energy seeping from her pores, flooding over her skin, lighting the room. As soon as it came, the flash of biotic viscera was gone, reabsorbed into her.

Samara returned to her feet, then took a step forward and pulled Shepard towards her. Shepard's mind immediately went to the warning Samara had issued before officially joining the squad: Samara would be obligated to do as Shepard ordered while under her command, but as soon as she was released, if she had taken any issue with Shepard's moral choices or personal code, Samara would be forced to kill her. Shepard tensed, her life not having a chance to flash before her eyes, before she realized it was a brief, firm hug she'd been pulled into, not a headlock or a blood choke. Still at a loss for words, Shepard returned it. Samara pulled away first.

"This, for the patience and sacrifice in helping me lay my daughter at rest." Morinth, Samara's daughter, who had turned out to be a mass-murderer, was finally dispatched only with Shepard's help, at great personal risk and cost. This much was true. "As a woman and a mother, not as a Justicar, you have my most humble thanks and eternal gratitude."

"You're one of my people, Samara, no thanks are needed." Shepard replied, feeling a faint blush starting to creep up from her neck. "You'd do the same for any of us."

Samara nodded. Then, at length, "I would like some time to reflect on what has just transpired," she said, "please alert me when we are close to dock at Omega, and I will join you."

"Of course." Then, "You'll be missed, Samara."

Samara thought on this, and gave Shepard a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. They never did.

She sat down and crossed her legs, knees pointed out, in a traditional meditation pose.

"The bravery and piety of your crew will go with me for the remainder of my days," she said, her skin lighting in that eerie, crackling blue energy, throwing a blue highlight over the room, the window, Shepard. "You have given me a great gift, one I intend to keep close to my heart. Thank you, Shepard."

* * *

"This doesn't sit right." Garrus stated, plainly, the porous metal plating on his face—in his own society a marking of good health and an upper ceiling of the proper age for mating—reflecting the dull cherry glow of the Normandy's bulkhead control. He was happiest here; the cool, dry air, the smell of metal and lubricant oil, the gentle, throbbing pulse of automated calipers, almost like a gun's heartbeat. Heaven. But today, his mind was uneasy, no matter how comfortable his surroundings.

"There's more to the story. I think she's telling the truth. Racial tensions in this system have been on the rise for decades... these are the _perfect_ spawning conditions for unrest, considering what happened to the Council _and_ C-Sec, all in just a few years. Even Saren turned out to be a fraud, exposed by a human... faith is low. People are scared. And when they're scared, they make their own enemies."

"But racial tensions do not attacks make," Tali replied. She was standing by the plastic crates to his right, commonly used as makeshift stools while he carefully and reverently cleaned his guns. Most of her weight was supported by her arms, and she leaned over the railing overlooking the massive metal hulks of the Normandy's heavy artillery. "But, I agree. And objectively, the timing _is _a bit suspect. In just a few years, most... 'aliens' on the Citadel have lost their footholds. They have no real visible power except for Joram Talid, now. It would be scary, were you a fundamentalist."

"Talid. Of course that racist bastard has to be a turian."

"We all have our zealots. I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing by itself that there is a pro-alien politician," Tali said. "Humans have Cerberus. Turians need some sort of representation, too."

"Joram isn't a representative, he's a god damned riot master, replete with angry mob and bullhorn. And he's _not _pro-alien, he's anti-human. There's a difference." Garrus muttered, and the creases between his facial plates lost their glow as he looked down, away from the light. "He's no good. He's using people's fear for his own gain. This 'we and them' crap is the what you use when you're trying to psych up a squad for war, not when you're describing people they have to live with. Nothing good comes of it, ever."

"But you hate politicians anyway," Tali pointed out. "Besides, this isn't something new. This is how the game is played, _vihat_, dirty as it is. Especially with elections looming. Any platform that scares up votes is a good platform."

"Valid point, but it doesn't change the fact that he's a lunatic. Or the fact his 'game' is hurting people."

Tali turned to Garrus and tilted her head, contemplatively. Garrus peered at her; with her face permanently obscured behind the synthetic fog of her mask and no expressions to gauge her emotions by before she articulated them, he was at a constant disadvantage during their conversations.

"You are awfully angry about this." She said.

"Of course I'm angry," Garrus grumbled, eyes staring faraway, hands on the panel that held his calibration tools. "This is injustice. Injustice, even for an alien, is injustice for everyone. People are being raped and dying in alleyways because this son of a bitch is allowed to spread his racist garbage under the flag of 'racial parity'. You, and I, and Shepard--"

"Shepard, again." Tali mumbled, voice pitched low, shaking her head.

"--listen to me, Tali, I'm not finished. All of us have put our lives on the line... repeatedly, in our case... to save this galaxy from evil. _Actual _evil, not just shady politicians. But what Talid is doing transcends politics. This man's evil—and that's what it is—is allowed to fester like a sore on a krogan's ass because of legal red tape, because he screams it from behind guys that are bigger and stronger than the guys he's preaching against. He's exactly the kind of idiot that we would have gone after on Omega."

They finished the sentence together, and Garrus immediately felt foolish.

"Sometimes I wonder," Tali said, quietly, the emotion in her voice hard to place, "if this interest in human vindication is because you think it's right, or because of something else."

Garrus' mandibles twitched, agitated, making a barely audible creaking noise like the legs of very tiny crickets.

"Of course it's because it's _right_," Garrus protested, immediately defensive, and he looked back out over the bulkhead. He felt his temper starting to churn, heavy and thick and hot in his chest like spiny vomit, ready to spew forth in the form of sharp words and sarcastic backhands as a means of shielding himself and his intentions, his morals.

"Keela, I wish you would quit lying to yourself," Tali spat, gesturing angrily with a hand. "Exactly _how_ long are you going to torture yourself like this? You are living in the _past_, Garrus. 'Going after idiots on Omega' nearly got you _killed_. Now you're talking about assassinating a politician, which is MUCH bigger fish! There are laws on the Citadel, penalties!"

Garrus shook his head. "Not assassinating. If assassinating was what I had in mind, then I wouldn't have stopped Thane's boy from killing him when I had the chance." He looked at her. "My _whole life_ has been dedicated to stopping men like Joram Talid, Tali, despite the apathy of people who allow evil to flourish by their own indifference. Sometimes they have to be stopped within the confines of the law, sometimes outside of it. He opposes people for what DNA they were born with, not the content of their character, and what he's doing is causing people—real people, not metaphorical examples—to be hurt. Now. As we speak. Tell me that's not wrong. Tell me _I'm_ wrong for opposing the proliferation of that sort of hate ANYWHERE in Alliance space."

Tali put her hands on her hips. "_Vihat_," she started—the quarian term of endearment, usually for a lover, but which also doubled as usage for particularly close family members, "I know this case, with the human girl—it has upset you. It upsets _me. _I _know _you mean well. You are not a bad person. But for someone as insightful as you are, you let yourself get... _tangled up_ in that anger and lose view of the big picture, which stands to get more people hurt than would have been in the first place. What has been done cannot be undone... say Talid gets knocked off. Right now. What do you think would happen with the anger he's provoked?"

"...It would kick around," Garrus said, at length, as if admitting a great defeat. "Find another outlet."

Tali nodded. "Scientific principle. Energy never disappears, it simply takes another form. _Everything _goes somewhere." It was Garrus' turn to help Tali complete a sentence; she paused, and nervously adjusted her hood. "I'm sorry. I see how annoying that is."

"Knock off one piece of garbage and another takes its place." He muttered, grim, not immediately acknowledging her apology.

"I hate it," Tali said, tenderly, and placed a gentle hand on the side of his face in an affectionate gesture. "And I _know_ you hate it, _vihat._ But we cannot save the humans from the ramifications of their actions, especially when they were in their own interests. All races go through these growing pains, ugly as they are. The best we can do is continue to be good people, and stop injustice where we see it. Micro scale. We will support them, but we cannot save them. No matter how much we want to."

Garrus was quiet, observing the soft glow of her eyes from inside her mask.

"You're right," he said, finally, righteous anger gone from him in a great whoosh. "You're right."

"For now, we will watch. If the violence gets out of hand..." she shrugged, "we will do what Big Stupid Heroes do, poke our noses when they are not wanted, and go. Okay?"  
Garrus nodded.

Tali bobbed on the balls of her feet and bonked her mask against his forehead, metal plating and foggy purple plasteel meeting together with a comical "whongggg" noise. The wordless turian salute reserved for one's mate, much as a human couple would kiss and make up.

"You should get ready. And I am sorry for yelling." Tali said. "You just... piss me off, sometimes."  
"Hey... I _like_ it when you're pissed off." Garrus replied, finding his conversational feet once more by the employ of teasing sarcasm. He leaned over, rubbed his forehead back and forth along the top of her mask. "And you know I love your nasty nerd talk."

She giggled, an innocent, tittering and girlish noise, her hand held in front of the blinking light of her mask's vocal projector. "Thermodynamics," she said, testing the waters, and Garrus pretended to quiver. "Triglyceride?" He gripped the panel with one hand, and put the other against her shoulder.

"I think I'm getting the vapors. I may need a cold shower..."

"I'll remember that for next time," she added, and walked to the door, wide feet thumping against the metal lattice grating under them. Garrus took this opportunity to examine the thick trunks of her thighs, the graceful swell of her hips, her impossibly slim waist. Oh, that waist.

She turned as the door opened.

"But for now, remember—only watching, okay?"  
Garrus grinned, sharp and toothy, and leaned back against his panel, arms crossed.

"Believe me. I'm okay with watching."

* * *

Bossk. His name was Bossk.

"Sorry about the inconvenience, ma'am." His name was Bossk and his tone was always the same—abashed, apologetic. Shepard stood with her arms out, staring at the pinstriped, frosted window of C-Sec proper's main entrance door, patiently allowing for the full-body scan. This marked the tenth time, easily.

"Would it help if I told you the rumors of my death had been greatly exaggerated?" She quipped, and he smiled—gave her a little chuckle, in fact.

"No doubt. Can't rightly figure out why your I.D. hasn't been taking—we got Captain Bailey himself to enter it in under his print, but no dice."

"Doesn't like you," Jacob said, crossing his arms. "Maybe it knows trouble when it sees it."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, Mister Taylor, except for promoted."

"Damn. And here I was, doing so well with my log books."

"You all are a trip," Bossk laughed, shaking his head, typing industriously on his computer panel with studious attention to the holographic monitor projection before him.

"You should see them after they've had a bit of the drinky-drinky," Garrus lamented, his voice laced with mock-solemnity. "A pack of savages, let me tell you. Wild as the winds."

"I believe it." _Ding! _"Ah, there we go. Magic fingers. You're free to go in, Shepard."

"Thanks for your help, Bossk." The door shunted open with incredible speed, and Shepard walked through. As Jacob approached the scanning station, it shut again.

Where most people stood to greet her, maybe even reached to shake her hand, Bailey never so much as left his seat. He seemed constantly buried by work, and unless you stood directly in front of his planner, monitor or file folder, you might as well be a piece of furniture. Shepard strode to stand in front of him, and sure enough, he met her eyes immediately.

The door opened behind her, and Jacob walked through to stand at her flank.

"Thanks for comin' on such short notice, Shepard. I took a look at that case you and your drell witnessed. I figured you'd be interested in something that happened this morning." He wasn't exactly a handsome man, pockmarked, with uneven skin and the burst blood vessels of a professional drinker, as well as a wholly uncomplimentary haircut. But his eyes were beautiful—or may have been, before a lifetime of smoking three packs a day. Bailey had a clipped, vaguely folksy accent—north of Ohio, maybe Old Michigan or even the Unified Canadian Front, if he was an Earthborn.

"Sounds interesting," Shepard replied, raising an eyebrow. "Are we sure this is legal?" As soon as she said it, her statement struck her as perhaps mildly insulting, suggesting she seemed more interested in legality than he, at least for the moment, and didn't press the issue.

"Hundred percent," Bailey said, pushing up from his desk.

"You remember the drell... your friend's boy."

"Kolyat," Shepard agreed, following him as he walked. Garrus intercepted their trajectory from the door, fell into step beside them.

The office of C-Sec, Citadel Security, was incredibly small, painted dark blue, with an everpresent force of turian and human officers busily working at the computer terminals lining the walls. "I remember him." She had to work to not sound worried, but instead passable concerned. "Is he in trouble again?"

"Not exactly, but you remember the politician he almost offed?" They cut down a hallway, and the pleasant, official blue color of the main office faded into an almost antiseptic gunmetal silver as they passed offices, holding cells.  
"Joram Talid," Garrus supplied, voice grave, and was all at once sick of saying his name.

_"_That's him. Mister Talid is making trouble enough for all of us." Bailey opened the lock on an office door, hunt-and-pecking the entrance code with extended index fingers, and then stood aside for Shepard and her squadmates to file in. A small, circular device was situated on the main conference room table, almost the shape of a Christmas tree stand with a keyboard attached to the side, the space in the middle filled by a great glass lens. "I'll show you what I mean. This was recorded earlier today by our riot squad."

"_--now I know that there will be people who say that our stance is too harsh, and that all races deserve an equal shot... and they're right," the turian said, gesturing widely with his hands. The crowd spread out as far as the recorder could see; there had to be at least two hundred. Maybe three, little neon people recreated by the jumping laser outline, spread over the table. "ALL races deserve a shot. And that means when one in particular decides that they're the authority for everybody else, well, that doesn't seem very equal to me. This wave of human totalitarianism has to end, friends; and it's up to us to end it, before this flawed, heavy-handed system can finish corrupting the Citadel that we love, so very much." There was cheering, and he took a moment to bask in it, cutting a stern profile before he waved it down to a hovering din so he could speak again._

"_They've tried to hurt me, and by doing so, hurt you," he said, voice loud and clear as a bell, "they've sent assassins after me, killed my friends in order to bully me into silence. Well, I say no. I will not be silent! I stand up and say, 'no!' I say no to intimidation!" The wild cheering began again in earnest. "I say no to the denial of a great future for you and your children, simply based on the DNA you are born with! I say no to the corruption of our very laws that make us a great nation, that put us on the map as the diplomatic center of the known universe! And above all, I say no to a broken system that prevents people like you from exercising your right to stand up and say enough is is enough! They are afraid, afraid of the power in us, ALL of us, afraid of us taking BACK our beloved Citadel! Because they know that what they are doing is __**wrong**__. And they know that we. Are. Right."_

_The sentence became a chant: "we are right, we are right". It lasted for a solid twenty seconds, before..._

"I've seen enough," Shepard hissed, gesturing at the monitor peevishly. Bailey clicked off the recorder, and the lights on the ceiling returned to their previous humming glow, dimly illuminating the room. "_Human totalitarianism? _This has to be illegal. He's lying about a case that's on the books and _inciting_ _violence,_ Bailey."

"That's the problem," Bailey said, rubbing his chin. "Kolyat's case isn't on the books. Had to stay off, given his lenient sentence, and I think Talid knows it. And as crap as it is, there's no law against racism—he didn't explicitly tell his people to kill anyone, so if they act the fool, he hasn't implicated himself to an extent we can prove in court."

"Right now, he's just a politician giving a speech," Jacob muttered, sneering. "Stoking the fires and letting other people get themselves burned."

"You got it," Bailey replied.

"Save his life, he gets off with shaking down human businesses... AND he gets to use it against us." Jacob shook his head. "We got gamed pretty hard."

"No good deed goes unpunished," Garrus added unpleasantly. "I'm sure we know someone who could set him straight, given enough credits, but at this point all it would do is make him a martyr."

"If at all possible I'd like to avoid assassinations," Bailey winced, "at least while I'm on duty."

"We can go talk to him," Shepard said, turning to Garrus. "Do you think he'd listen to you?"

"What, because I have four toes and a fringe? Doubt it. I'm probably just as human as you are, to that lunatic, what with the whole Cerberus thing."

Shepard covered her forehead with a hand. "This is probably what Udina wants to discuss. Not sure what I'm going to tell him..."

"Udina?" Bailey winced again. "Good luck with that one. Well, you didn't get this from me." He passed over a file folder, stacked two inches deep with paper, careful to make the switch before he hit the door controls and they filed out, back into the main office. "There's a collection of reports of all violent crimes committed against humans in the last three months, since the botched attempts on Talid's life. Happened to be right around the time his talking points went from typical jobs-and-freedom-take-back-your-ward shit to real fire and brimstone anti-human rhetoric, if the polls are any kind of indication."

Shepard took it, threw a cursory glance at the first page, and then handed the folder to Garrus.

"So you think the attacks are connected to his recent popularity?" Shepard asked Bailey, trailing behind him, back to his desk.

"I'd bet money on it. Whatever's behind this," Bailey grunted and sat back down, chair squeaking in protest. He swiveled back to his monitor. "He's doing something right, because his campaign office reported a huge spike in donations starting a month or so ago."

"Money," Garrus said. "Great reason."

"Don't know how things got this bad," Bailey said, "But what I do know, is if your adventures take you down to the Wards again, I'd be careful. Not real friendly down there for us squishes anymore."

"There's something I don't get about this, Bailey," Shepard said, crossing her arms. "Why are you giving this information to me? What am I supposed to do with it?"

Bailey clacked on his keyboard. "You run a tight operation, and you get shit finished. Not like here. I figure if there is something to be done with it," he said, "you're probably the person to do it."

"Politics isn't exactly my strong suit," she contended.

"Justice is, though," Bailey replied, "and... you didn't hear this from me... if it's gotta be outside the law, well, I'd rather see some get done than by the books and none at all.

* * *

"I'm not sure I like it," Shepard said abruptly. Both Jacob and Garrus looked at her; in the bright light of the elevator, chiming with what could barely be called music and maybe was closer to just _sounds, _her hair took on a color that was closer to auburn than its natural brown-black. "We're supposed to act outside the law to stop someone from acting outside the law."  
"Seems like a vicious cycle," Jacob agreed.

"It's the only way anything gets done," Garrus objected, "otherwise it's just a dance of varren shit and advocates. Innocence these days comes down to who has the most money, not who's actually innocent."

"You have to wonder if Talid has a point," Jacob contended, "if C-Sec is that willing to bend their own rules just to get at him, he may have a reason to distrust at least humans... at least on the Citadel."

"Maybe if you tilt your head and squint." Shepard said.

"Even a stopped clock," Garrus added, with a shrug, sounding unconvinced. The doors to the elevator slid open.

Most people, upon entering the Presidium above the Citadel for the first time, insisted that it was probably close to what heaven looked like (krogan seemed exempt from this observation, rather keenly interested in the idea of whether or not the wide, glittering stream water below the floor actually held live fish). It was a skylit, manmade canyon of lush foliage, flowers, and twinkling sunlight; clean, wide, with friendly people. The council, diplomats all all stripes, and pretty much everybody who was anybody on this station took up residence in the Presidium. Shepard had heard of the term "ivory tower academic" before and had assumed that the residents of the Presidium—and idyllic place held aloft from the realities of life in the Wards below, where the laws and judgments made by the people here were seldom justifiable—was as close of an example as you were probably going to find.

Shepard strode, flanked by Jacob and Garrus, to the receptionist's desk. Behind it sat a sight of great rarity; a female turian, dressed in a robe of dusty rose, entering information into a PDA with her long talons. She had no visible tattoos, but possessed the typical swooping, tapered head fringe that separated the males from the females of their species. She looked at Shepard expectantly, mandibles trilling gently against the slightly rounded plates of her face. Her eyes weren't just piercing—they bored into you, such a light silver they were almost white.

"Commander Jane A. Shepard," Shepard offered, after a beat. "Ambassador Udina wanted to see me."

The receptionist turned to her computer, tapped a few keys. "I apologize," she replied, her voice magnified, pitched high and low simultaneously by two sets of vocal chords. "Your appointment is for three, ma'am. Please have a seat. The ambassador will see you shortly."

Shepard squinted at the clock. Two-forty-four. Jacob peered at Garrus, nudged him. He was staring. Garrus cleared his throat.

Shepard considered protest, but gave up as soon as she began. The three drifted away from the desk to lean against the railing of the platform they stood on, overlooking the Presidium grounds. At exactly three o'clock, the receptionist rose from her seat, and offered a long arm, gesturing down a hallway. "Right this way, ma'am."

When the three began forward, the turian shook her head. "The ambassador takes one visitor at a time, ma'am. I'm sorry—policy. Please, follow me."

Shepard split off from the group, following the woman down the hallway. The offices were lavishly decorated, the kind of indulgence that only those that had more money than purpose could really abide, she thought. The turian stopped, bowed, and gestured at a doorway.

"The ambassador will see you now."  
Shepard nodded her thank you, pressed the green holographic on the door. She simply stood, shellshocked, as it slid open. An asari sat at Udina's desk, staring at Shepard over the sights of a pistol, mouth drawn down in a frown of concentration.

"What the hell?" In a flash, Shepard dropped her hand to the butt of her own pistol and drew it with lightning speed, firing a single shot from the hip. It was a shot of pure luck, guaranteed to not hit a Damn Thing, and definitely not how she was _taught_ to shoot, but the situation left little room for the luxury of time, or finesse. The bolt struck the wall directly above the asari's shoulder, but wasn't enough to stop her from plugging Shepard with a well-aimed shot dead-center in her chest that bounced, sizzling and smoking, against the holographic shield projected by her armor in an attempt to save her from the overload of electricity. It sent Shepard stumbling back, bracing her heel against the floor to keep from losing her footing and falling over.

A blow from behind her, striking her sound in the vulnerable nape under the swell of her skull caused Jane to fall this time, but forward, tumbling to a half-kneel on the floor. Her gun thumped to the plush carpet, bouncing out of sight. She struggled to climb to her hands and knees, trying to blink away the blinding pain, vision keening and popping with multicolored lights. Beneath her was a dark pool, shiny and smelling of copper, that kept her from finding purchase, her fingers and boot soles slipping from under her as she tried to stagger to her feet. She felt arms over her shoulders, then a _thwip_, and something closed around the base of her throat, immediately restricting the precious flow of oxygen and cutting into her skin. She was yanked back, almost off of her feet, and her hands instinctually flew to her neck, digging for the source, and finding nothing big enough to grab.

_ A garotte,_ her mind raced, and she tried to yell to alert her team, to do _something, _but found nothing but buzzing in her head, heat in her throat, and panic. Her lungs burned, trying to open and suck in air that was effectively blocked at the shoulder level. Her feet thrashed in the air.

They wheeled inside the room, now facing the door. The asari ran over, gun still brandished, and locked the door with a nimble flurry of blue fingers on the holographic control pad in its center.

"Goddess' tits, just hurry and _do_ it," she said, voice panicked. "Did she bring anyone?" She watched the door, gun aimed, voice shaky, glancing back and forth from struggle to door to struggle to door.

_ They taught you how to use these and break them, Shepard, _Jane forced her mind to calm, as much as she could at the moment, and stilled her lungs, pressing her mouth into a line. Training. She focused on the words, the motions. _These amateurs don't know shit—YOU'RE the Spectre here. _

Her feet swung into the air, one more time, to grab momentum.

"Yeah. Two squadmates detailed in the dossier. Vakarian and Tay--" the turian's words were cut short. Shepard's hands flew back, and groped to hold a single point at the shallow, nubby cowl around the assassin's neck. There wasn't much to grab, but the commander's grip was solid, and the turian was flung over the human's head in a tight arc, sent with a crash onto her back on the floor, Shepard kneeling above her. She tried to hold the choke-string but dropped it, feeling it snag her fingers and draw blood as it slid out of her grip. Shepard grabbed the garotte, a simple, shining thread that came mere seconds from cutting her illustrious career short once again, and shoved it into a pocket on her greaves for safekeeping. On her way back up, Shepard thumped a shallow panel on her chest with a fist.

When the asari turned back around at the sound of the crash, Shepard was gone.

"Ah--" she stuttered, stepping back to press her back against the wall and aiming her gun at random positions in the room. There was deafening silence; the turian groaned and held her head, attempting to shake the stars out of her eyes. Out of the corner of her vision the asari saw the plush carpeting underfoot compress two meters or so away, slightly to her right, in the shape of a footprint, then another.

"Think you're so smart," she laughed, "I've got you, you b--" Before she could say another word, the asari was driven into the wall, knocking a framed map of Old Earth from its bracketing to crash to the floor with a loud shattering of glass, two shots placed clean through her forehead. A splash of chunky purple viscera splattered onto the wall behind her, and her eyes rolled back in her head, falling to her knees and then flat onto her face. The turian rolled, wide-eyed to her feet, dove behind the desk.

The commander faded back into view, visage wobbly as the biotics wore off with her offensive stature. The asari's corpse thumped to the floor, twitching, and Shepard looked around, gun trained close.

"We can talk about this," Shepard warned, almost comically under the circumstances, "or you can end up like your friend. Getting shot tends to irk my nerves, so you might want to choose quickly."

Shepard took in the grisly scenery with flicking eyes, senses alert and sharp, adrenaline pumping. She crept sideways around the desk in an arc. The room—the walls, carpet, countless awards and ribbons which it contained—were all splashed with green, cleaned as well as possible and faded to a light lime color, though there was no body to be found nearby. Only one race bled green—salarians, who, if they were not scientific geniuses, tended to work as leystaff and cleaners. There was only the closet, and Shepard thought she saw the horizontal slats bending outwards, but couldn't get a good look. If she had to wager she'd say it was most likely the actual receptionist in there, but there was no time to investigate.

Shepard stepped around the desk, aiming her gun swiftly at the point where she'd seen the turian dive—it was empty. Shepard wondered momentarily if the attacker was also an infiltration tech—she'd had a garotte, but hadn't known how to use it, or maybe simply hadn't gotten a good grip. She was cut short by said attacker popping up across the desk from her, the broad cherry-oak tableau separating their bodies, and with a grunt of exertion the turian hurled a heavy glass bottle that had previously rested on the desk, at Shepard. Shepard juked and it shattered against the wall. When her attention was turned back to the turian, split-seconds later, they were both tumbling backwards, the assassin plowing bodily into her, knocking her gun once again from her hand.

Shepard bounced off the wall, her armor cracking a shallow crater in the plaster. The turian desperately swung a punch for the commander and hit flush; something in Shepard's face yielded under her fist with a dry, brittle snap. Her bandage, covering the new gash on her face, was half-ripped off, dangling stupidly like a piece of dead skin. The turian grabbed her, pushed Shepard back, slammed her into a nearby bookcase, causing all of the contents to jerk and jar, toppling to the floor. Turians were much stronger, typically much larger than humans—this woman wasn't much smaller than Garrus, who had at least three or four inches on Shepard herself. She groped for Shepard's throat, found it, closed her taloned hands around it with all her available strength, tried to force Shepard to her knees with a long, drawn out grunt.

Shepard felt the talons beginning to cut soft flesh already injured by the garotte wire, squeezing the air out of her once more. Shepard's hands flew to the turian's wrists out of pure instinct and tried to tug them off—after a moment or so of this, Shepard reached an arm up, brought it down hard in a bar across the turian's wrists, knocking them down, and then headbutted her with all her might. It was an instinctual decision Shepard immediately regretted, once again knocked staggered with stars in her eyes.

Outside, Jacob and Garrus were quiet, settling into a companionable silence. Garrus was reading documents from Bailey's file folder, Jacob was looking off into the distance, enjoying the sunlight.

"A female Turian, huh," Jacob finally said, "I've never seen one before."

"They don't tend to stray outside the fleet," Garrus responded, "they comprise most of our military. Tend to be better fighters than the men."

"She had quite the... what's the word? Crest?"

"Fringe," Garrus replied, turning a page. He tapped the armored cowl around his neck with a hand. "This is our crest."

"Was she..." Jacob gestured, mostly with his eyebrows. "You know? I can't tell."

Garrus looked at him. "Well... let's just say that's one appointment I wouldn't mind booking. Not at all."

Jacob nodded. Appreciable enough. Then, a thought occurred to him.

"The secretary—she's been gone for a while. Where did she go, anyway?"

Before Garrus could reply, the question hitting him in an odd, information-sleepy part of his brain, a great crash from somewhere behind them perked two sets of ears, widened two sets of eyes, staring in disbelief. Immediately they were off, running down the hall, folder of information forgotten on the bench outside.

Sensing her moment of opportunity, Shepard's aggressor was on her again, grabbing her by her by the hard lip of her breastplate, slamming a knee into her midsection. Shepard doubled over, a hard, hot rush of vomit threatening to be squeezed from her body from the sudden impact; the turian kneed her again, crushing her nose, a hot spurt of blood splashing her knees, the white carpet beneath her. Then Shepard was in the air again, flying back, and landed with a crash on a table full of glass decorations and framed, projected photos. The turian mounted her, the table creaking under their weight, and brought her arm down against Shepard's windpipe.

"You have _extremely_ bad timing," the woman said. Outside, the hurried thumping of footfalls stopped just outside the door, and a heavy pounding shook the frame.

"Shepard?! Shepard, what's going on in there?!" Garrus. Then, "Stand back, I'm going to blow the lock."

The turian snapped her head to the side, grimacing, grin of triumph forgotten. Clamoring for anything her hand could touch, fully immersed in the ugly, struggling, graceless thrashes of pure survival instinct, Shepard searched around the table above her for anything of use, succeeding in knocking off more objects that she grabbed. Her hand finally closed, claw-like around something that felt like a statue or maybe a clock. The turian returned her attention to Shepard, and was immediately met by the kiss of a heavy brick of iron and hardwood, driven against her head. She cried out, wheeling back, and savagely slapped the idol from Shepard's grip, sending it tumbling to the ground with a series of muted thumps. She then grabbed Shepard's wrist and slammed it to the table, rearing back to bring her head down, metal plates presenting themselves as a weapon all of their own.

Sensing the end closing in, Shepard exercised her last possible option. As the turian brought her head down Shepard turned hers, allowing her battered cheek and ear to take the brunt of the hit, and craned her head up at a queer angle, dangerously close to being out of safe range of motion, and bit the turian's throat as hard as she could. Her teeth cut through leathery skin and the woman tried to shake her off but Shepard held on, squeezing, until she felt the hot bubble of blood. She ripped off a strip of skin that didn't fully detach, and the turian cried, her hand flying to her throat. The blood flooded over Shepard's lips and over her face: her skin immediately started to itch, throbbing, and she spit the blood out before she could swallow any of it. With her attacker distracted, Shepard punched out with all of her available force, knocking the turian upwards and off of her. The door beside them shuddered, slamming in its jamb, creaking in protest. Shepard sat up, which at this point was more of a rapid slump, and hit her again, and felt the plate anchored to the assassin's temple start to come loose; her rightmost mandible twisted and broke outwards, hanging on its hinge like a busted window frame. Shepard hit her again, and they tumbled off the table, the commander on top, thumping as dead weight to the floor.

The two muzzle flashes sizzled, lighting the hallway, leaving two scorch marks on the wall, but no perceptible difference in the integrity of the lock.

"Fuck this." Garrus spat, holstering his pistol. "We're coming in!!" He called, then leaned back. "On three, again."

Jacob nodded, and crouched beside him, readying his shoulder. "One... two..."

The turian wheeled in mid-air, landing on her side, pinning her arm beneath her in a graceless heap, and Shepard came soon after, falling more than pushing off of the table on her own accord. Shattered glass was everywhere; underfoot, in her hair, probably some in her wounds.

The turian immediately scrambled to her hands and knees, sprawling for Shepard's fallen pistol; Shepard followed, loping almost drunkenly in fatigue, grabbed the woman by her shirt, dragged her back. She attempted to loop her arms around the larger woman's neck for some kind of choke hold, but the spiny fringe protruding from the back of her head clattered clumsily against the armor guarding Shepard's breasts, giving the turian enough room to snap her head to the side and break free.

Desperate for another option, Shepard spotted the fallen statue to her immediate right, and reached to grab it; at the same moment that the assassin lashed out with her free arm for Shepard's throat, instead carving a brutal arc across Shepard's injured nosebridge, missing her lower eyelid by fractions of an inch. Shepard cried; fell to the floor, hand gripping the statuette like a clumsy bowling ball, objective obtained but vision blurring, the loss of blood between her broken nose and her injured face throwing the world under a spinning, gauzy layer of haze and confusion.

The assassin pushed against her, trying to turn the tables and grab the commander in a choke of her own, but Shepard swung in a snapping arc, slamming the statue, once again against the woman's temple, splitting the plate from the assassin's head with a ripping noise and a visceral spurt of sapphire. She howled. Shepard dove sloppily on top of her, overpowering her, half-pinned her wriggling form to the ground, and hit her with the heavy decoration one more time.

"YOU HAVE ONE CHANCE!" Shepard screamed, deep, pinning the woman with all her might, who was bucking and pushing as if her life, literally, depended on it. "TELL ME WHO YOU ARE, AND WHY YOU'RE HERE!"

The door buckled again on the muffled cry of three, bending inwards somewhere just above the center, cracking along seams in the plasteel covered by paint and glass. The jamb was bent beyond repair. Shepard flung her face away, trying to clear her bloody hair from her eyes, and was finally bucked off, landing on her backside with an awkward thump, leg bending underneath her in a way that made her knee scream.

She turned back to the assassin who had gotten away, to the other side of the small room, and successfully and closed her hand around the fallen Predator pistol's muzzle. She rolled, pointed it at Shepard, and squeezed off two shots—one of which bounced, crackling against Shepard's shields which blinked and then collapsed in a brilliant blue cascade, and one shot that flew just wide under the commander's right armpit, demolishing the remains of the decorative table on which they'd scrambled. This was her final chance—the woman had a gun, Shepard had no shields, and she'd already given up her right to safe harbor by not surrendering when given the chance. It was act, or die.

Shepard ran, adrenaline-drunk towards the shots, and dove on top of her assailant one more time, knocking the wind from her in a choking whoosh. She reared back her arm, bringing it back down with all her might against the assassin's head, over and over until her arm was covered with dark, shining fluid to the elbow; until the only movement beneath her the flickering of eyelids and the mindless jawing of a dying nervous system, Shepard's face polka-dotted with the telltale deep blue of turian blood.

"THREE!" The door cracked inward, swung off its hinges from the outside. Jacob and Garrus flooded into the room, guns drawn, and Jacob juked, barely managing to avoid being tripped by the corpse in front of the door. The commander was sitting astride her fallen attacker, beside Udina's desk, bleeding, swollen, her face a broken, carved mask of what it was just ten minutes prior. Her hair was tangled with clots, sweat, and glass. The turian's neck was bent at a queer angle, throat partially torn open, half the plates on her face missing or pushed inwards, her fringe cracked and bent unnaturally so her head could lie where it had been forced on the floor, surrounded by a pool of deep blue.

Shepard stood up and over her, legs shaky, and dropped the metal-and-glass statuette with a thump, to the carpeted floor. She was breathing hard, but not panting; her eyes were bright and her face aware, hypersensitive to the stimuli around her.  
"Holy shit—Shepard, are you alright? Commander!!" Jacob yelled, holstering his gun and running over, grabbing her by the shoulders and turning her. Garrus watched the door, pistol aimed down the hallway, holding the line.

"I'm fine," Shepard said, gingerly touching her injured nose, and pulling back her hand to stare disdainfully at the blood on her fingertips. She spit a bluish foam onto the carpet, then wiped her mouth with her her clean gauntlet. Jacob got extremely close, looked straight in her eyes—no shock, but close. Very close.

Honestly, a part of Shepard felt good about fucking up Udina's office with such a brazen and visceral scene of violence, but she didn't say as much—it was something she would admonish Jack for saying much less thinking, and it was an unbecoming quality in a commanding officer. But still

"Garrus, go get Bailey," she said, and put her hands on her hips. "And nobody touch anything. I think he'll want to see this."


	4. Where Nobody Knows

Shepard washed her face in the C-Sec public bathroom. She'd used the only available soap—pink, harsh, and antibacterial—to clean the deep gash between her eyes and wash the greasy slick of sweat and dried blood from her skin. It made her feel pinched and dry, but at least she was clean.

Upon returning from the bathroom, Jacob had intercepted her and sat her down. He applied a liberal dose of Medi-Gel with careful, surprisingly precise touches, his mouth turned down in what looked like concentration mingled with distant concern.

She screwed up her nose against the acrid smell, and immediately regretted it. "Ow, Jesus."

"Yeah, it stinks," he said, dipping his gloved fingers back into the sealed packet for another dose of the cold, pungent mixture. She could already feel it tingling, knitting the laceration together, even as the gash still drizzled warm trickles of blood down her nose. He mopped the drip with a paper towel and continued his work. "Better than getting an infection, though. It may not even scar."

He set her nose, and set the cracked bone in her cheek—truly, there was nothing the gel couldn't do if you had an injector, and long as you had something to bite down on. She'd have to inspect the damage later.

"You're pretty good at this." Shepard observed, for conversation's sake. "Were you a doc?"

Jacob smiled, a handsome smirk full of self-satisfaction. "Maybe." He said, then brushed a stray gob of something from her forehead with his towel. "Been a lot of things. Hard to recall them all, by now."

Garrus was uncharacteristically quiet, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, a faraway look in his eye. Shepard moved to say something to include him in the conversation when Captain Bailey strode back into the office, one hand over an eye in an expression which very clearly said it was much, much Too Early for This Shit. Considering it was four-thirty-seven, any time of the day probably would have been Too Early for This Shit.

"Well," he started, then abruptly halted his train of thought, started patting himself down for a pack of cigarettes. "God damn it."

Jacob regarded him quietly, then tapped Shepard on the shoulder, and told her to turn around by spinning a finger. She did, and he put a hand in her hair, pushed it up off of her neck, started cleaning a wound on the back of her head that she didn't know she had.

Cigarette now perched between his lips and lit, Bailey fell back into his squeaking leather chair and took a long, satisfied drag. "You were on the money about the receptionist, at least. Salarian, shot and shoved in a closet."

"Not something I'm exactly happy to be right about," Shepard replied, just left of a sarcastic mumble.

"The question is, were they here for Shepard, or Udina?" Garrus piped up, voice pitched low; Shepard had only heard that inflection out of him once, when she was attempting to talk him out of shooting a former squad mate named Sidonis, something she had ultimately failed in doing. Any kind of return to that head space worried her, and to Shepard, just this kind of moodiness might have been a sign of backsliding on Garrus' part, as was the relative disinterest in the slaughter of a civilian.

"Both important people," Bailey replied, and one of his officers started waving her hand in front of her face, trying to clear the stink of cigarette smoke from her personal bubble.

"They were after me." Shepard said. "I received a private message telling me to meet Udina in his office on the Presidium ASAP, earlier this morning."

"Seems a little fishy, in hindsight." Garrus admitted, thoughtfully.

"It checked out." Shepard said. "I had my assistant make an appointment with his office, everything cleared. Still not sure what to make of it."

"Good thing we're in a police station." Jacob added, and his subtle barb didn't go unnoticed.

"Well, we're on it," Bailey said, a smidge defensively, and dropped the smoldering remains of his cigarette into a cold cup of coffee. It sizzled out into thin wisps of smoke, and then he lit another.

"Damn glad it was you and _not_ Udina, Shepard, but Jesus Mary and Joseph what a god damned mess."

"They were amateurs," Shepard shrugged, more nonchalantly than she felt. The adrenaline had worn off, and reality set in—she was frightened, but she had years of experience in acting out from under fear. "Udina probably could have taken them, too. Where is he, anyway?"

"Diplomatic mission to Illium," Bailey supplied. "Don't know what for."

"That's odd," Garrus said, voice languid, pondering. "Does Illium _have _a central governing body?"

"Probably not safe for him to come back right now, in any event." Jacob said, spreading a jolt of cold gel onto Shepard's scalp, right above her bottom hairline.

"Yeah, we've got it taken care of. He's being taken to a safe holding station, anonymous, all that jazz." Bailey had a brief think, then covered his face with his hand again. "Hopefully Talid doesn't get a hold of this information until we find out what actually happened, but that might be asking too much."

"Talid is the last thing that should be on our minds right now." Jacob offered. "Plus, if he's smart as we assume he is, he'll know that attacking the person who _saved_ the Citadel would be comparable to political suicide. Human or no."

"You _are_ pushing for that promotion, aren't you?" Garrus chided, amused. Jacob rolled his eyes.

"You and your people are free to go, Shepard." Bailey interjected, trying to slide a word in edgewise between the squad chatter. "Just try to stick close to the relays unless we have more questions sometime later. We're going to order some food and hammer these details out."

"Understood. Garrus will be acting as my official liaison to this office while you're investigating." Shepard said. "All my knowledge about laws and cases comes from him, anyway, so if you don't mind, brief him on what you find, then he'll relay it to me in small words. Possibly crayon illustrations. And Jacob," she peered at him over her shoulder, "I'm good for now—I want you to head back to the Normandy and inform Kelly the squad has shore leave for the rest of the day, yourself and Garrus included. She'll file the paperwork and get the message out. You're free after that."

Garrus nodded. "I'll stay here then. Take a look at that crime scene report, see if I can track down any leads on the assassins."

Jacob perked an eyebrow—Shepard was notorious for running a tight ship, and random bursts of undocumented leave was pretty loose. "Any official reason, Shepard?" He asked.

"Chiefly because I need a damned drink," she responded, purposefully veiling the truth, at least a little bit, "and I'm not going to make you guys work while I'm off getting sloshed. You're dismissed—reveille is at oh-seven-hundred, per usual."

"Aye aye, Commander."

* * *

* * *

She still had an hour and ten minutes before the two-hour window was up, when Thane would act on their agreed-upon rules and return to the Normandy as if no meeting had been arranged. Shepard felt bad for putting him in such a position, waiting for no possible payoff, but she couldn't exactly help it—sometimes things happened... like food poisoning, or being attacked by assassins.

So, like intelligent people, they'd set a few ground rules, this being chief among them, to give them both freedom and minimize chances they'd be caught; others were "never _ever_ aboard the Normandy", and at no time should they use the same rented apartment, hotel room, shoebox, whatever, more than once. Miranda's prying eyes were always watching and Shepard knew it—it was her job, to secure the Illusive Man's greatest money-sink of all time. Shepard didn't personally dislike Miranda, but she felt as if she lived with the youngest Nosy Old Lady ever, constantly peering out of her lace curtains to see what the kids were up to.

Shepard approached the door. The complex was squat and white, lined with multiple apartments that, from the outside, looked to be one-bedroom or smaller. The late afternoon sun threw a wash of orange and purple across the front wall, polished plasteel twinkling against her eyes, making her squint. She reached into the cargo pocket on her greaves, and retrieved a scrap of paper and a swipe-key that Thane had given her earlier in the day, once she informed him where they'd be docking. She was duly impressed with his preparedness, as he'd had little time to orchestrate such a thing. It had to have been done beforehand. He had simply nodded, as if this caliber of preparation was par for the course. Either he took his trysts _very_ seriously, or that apartment held something else, be it safe haven or something less innocent.

As her hand came out of her pocket, the garotte wire she'd stowed in it came away in a loop around the card like a stray hair, glinting in the fading tangerine light. She untangled it and stowed it again, then checked the numbers on the note.

Three hundred and forty seven... yeah, this was the one.

Shepard swiped her card through the reader beside the door jamb. The locking mechanism chimed out a quaint little song, and the door opened with a mechanical, hydraulic hiss.

The apartment was dimly lit, they grey no-color of dust, with a single, thin slant of sunlight pooling on the floor at a shallow angle in the middle of the far visible room. Shepard had to squint to make out the curvature of the furniture; there was a soft, manilla-yellow glow coming from an adjoining room, and she followed it. There, on a sofa set against the opposite wall, sat Thane, leaned industriously over a well-loved paperback book. He looked up as he heard her approach and blinked; smiling at first, an expression which slowly fell, giving way to a look that was mostly confusion. He set the book down, eyes never leaving her, and moved to her, tilting his head in an unspoken question.

"Would you believe me if I said 'you should have seen the other guy'?" She offered, trying for a smile. He didn't look amused.

"A fight, or an attack?" Thane asked, after taking in the angry pink streak across her nose, the slight swelling in her cheek, thin half-moon bruises forming under her eyes. His eyes caught a glint in the dim light—he reached up and picked a piece of glass from her hair, studied it, turned it in his fingers, sparkling flashes on green skin.

"Definitely an attack," Shepard said, "we can talk about it later. For now, I just want to get out of this damn suit and get a shower."  
Thane looked up from the piece of glass with a smile, despite himself. "Another trend," he said, "you appear to be a woman of habit, siha."

Shepard was confused, until the memory reassembled itself from the hints in the conversation; after the battle on the Collector station, the first day back on the Normandy, she had been injured, and had complained of being too tired to do much of anything except for wash up and sleep when he had waited for her in her quarters. She smiled; it pulled up one corner of her mouth, sardonic, and she gave him a playful shove. "Out of my way, Krios. You're the only thing standing between me and that couch."

Shepard clomped over to it, sat down hard, and started unbuckling her boots. They came unjawed with a hiss, the seals popping open after a moment or two of tugging and prising the clamps. Thane sat across from her in a chair, making little-to-no sound in comparison to the angry punches of her boots on the floorboards. He placed the shard of glass on the table between them.

"Would you like help?" He asked.

"Yes. And you don't have to ask." Shepard said, patted the couch beside her. He sat, took one of her boots, pulled it off, and set it to the side. She was undressed, in a simple tank top and black shorts that were the unisex under-armor uniform, in a matter of minutes. Immediately, she fell backwards against the sofa, stretching, languid, free of her restraints. Thane lifted her legs and laid them across his lap, placed a hand on one of her bare ankles.

"Will you tell me what happened?" He asked, quietly, voice so low it was almost a croak. "I would hear it."

"I was set up," she said, as if discussing the color of the sky. "I thought I was seeing Udina. They sent me a dummy email to lure me out. Killed his receptionist, took their place, jumped me in his office. A turian and an asari."

"Two assassins?"

"Yeah."

"At once?"  
"Yup."  
Thane looked at her again.

"Impressive."

"Well, I'm an impressive woman." Thane gave her a look of lighthearted skepticism and made an dry laugh in his throat. Shepard grinned in response, and wriggled, trying to get comfortable. "They didn't seem too experienced, though."

"If you need two assassins for a single target, you should probably not use either."

"Well, not everyone's a legend like present company—you gotta start somewhere." He had no visible reaction to the compliment. "It makes me wonder why _I'm_ that somewhere, though. I'm not exactly the best fighter, but..."

"Both at close proximity—tried to overwhelm you. Brute strength and numbers over skill." Thane pondered. "Mercenaries, perhaps, not professional assassins. Trying to get a foot in the door... a mark."

"A mark?" Shepard repeated, craning her head up to regard him.

"A resume—a work reference." In this light his skin, finely scaled with a dull sheen, seemed to glow. "A job executed quickly and cleanly as evidence you are fit for tougher jobs of the same stripe."

"The turian was a female, though. I've only seen three or four outside of Palaven, and they were all in the Alliance fleet. I don't know any mercenary outfits that have that kind of pull on turian society, besides maybe the Blue Suns. But that doesn't explain the asari."

"Perhaps a new group, trying to make a name for themselves. Dispatch of a big fish, prove your worth in the galactic pecking order."

"Then how were they able to get a message to me under the Ambassador's office's prints? It doesn't add up."

"That sort of favor can be bought," Thane explained, closed his eyes, and sank back against the couch. She liked seeing him relax—truly kick back and rest—as uncommon as it was. "But that caliber of favor would be expensive," he added, "and dangerous. Whoever called it in has considerable influence, and had to be certain the job would get done."

"Well, enough about people trying to kill me. How was your day?"

Thane opened one glossy black eye and peered at her, unsure if this was humor, then closed it again when he decided it was not.

"Pleasant. I found a antique curio that sells the old paper editions of books." Thane said. "I am reading an elcor period drama. It is... curious. Quite dramatic."

"'Dramatic Elcor' sounds like the name of a band." She observed. "A really, really _slow_ band."

"Or a video on the extranet." He added, and she tilted her head when he smiled, obviously trying for a straight-man joke and failing. "Swooping orchestration and all."

"Sometimes I wonder about you." Shepard said, reaching back and grabbing a throw pillow from above her head, then tossed it at him. When the mood struck him, Thane had a dry, subtle sense of humor that could be teasing on occasion, but his jokes always had two things in common—that you had to look _very _closely to know there was a joke there at all, and that he knew more than he let on. About people, culture, relationships, the works. It drove her crazy, but that was part of the fun. The pillow hit his chest with a harmless _whump _and he recoiled a moment too late, laughing.

"_I_ am going to go get that shower," Shepard said, pushing off of the couch and heading towards the bathroom, fully aware of the generous view her shorts were probably providing him. She grabbed the bottom seam of her shirt, hands criss-crossed, and yanked it over her head, discarding it to the side in a small white pile. Shepard was small busted at best and rarely needed a bra, but had worn the prettiest one she had, for just this occasion. "As always," she said, walking backwards, "there's room in there for two."

Thane immediately tossed the pillow aside and rose from his seat to follow her. She laughed.

"You don't always need explicit vocal permission, you know."

"I like to hear you say it." He explained, placing his hands on her bare stomach as he approached. He ran them up her sides, and a pleasant little jolt shot down her body from her fingertips to her groin at his touch. "How long is left?" He asked, "Forty minutes?" and raised his arm to peer at the timepiece on his wrist. She caught the arm before he could, pushed it back down. He was in kissing range, but neither moved forward, enjoying the tease of the close proximity.

"The squad is on shore leave." She responded, smiling. "And that includes you. We have all the time in the world."

He leisurely ran his hands back down over the modest, rounded swell of her hips, down to her thighs, and leaned in to kiss her. At the last possible moment when her eyes closed, he crouched and picked her up. Jane immediately clung to him like a scared cat, legs around his waist and arms around his neck, making an undignified sound of gleeful fear at the sudden shift in height.

"Then I intend it to be much longer than forty minutes."

Her giddy laughing and his thrumming chuckle were the final sounds before he hefted her along with him into the bathroom, and slammed the door with a foot. For tonight, leave the mires of political intrigue, assassins, and police tape for the world outside to untangle.

* * *

Most of his vital energy stores completely depleted, Thane had shaken off the powerful, initial urge to simply _sleep_, and had instead stumbled to retrieve two cans of beer from the small kitchenette fridge while Shepard dried her hair. When she returned, there was the faint, warm buzz of alcohol and pillow talk. The two cuddled together on the floor under a simple white bedsheet, she immersed in the intense dry heat of his naked body, and he enjoying the feel of her soft, pliable skin against him, smooth and free of scales. Thane quite enjoyed this part, in a different part of his brain than he enjoyed the _other _part. Both inspired memories, vivid and revisited often—these scenes however tended to be more powerful, to his occasional chagrin.

Shepard told him about Old Earth—a small planet orbiting a small sun, a planet drowning thanks to overconsumption. The idea of creeping, seemingly limitless water gave him a tangible, albeit repressed quiver.

She was from a sprawling city called Las Vegas that was made of lights and crime, where anything was for sale and gangs roamed the streets. He assumed it club Afterlife made into a city, and she laughed, said it was close enough. Aria probably would have liked Vegas a lot, that is, until she eventually took over.

He admitted to liking human music, or that which he'd heard on his travels and in her chambers when she played it. He liked what she determined was the bass guitar from his explanation, and told her how his parents had started him playing stringed instruments when he was very young, but he wasn't sure he could remember how to. He'd also come to harbor a grudging affection for anything hard and electronic—he once again invoked the name of Afterlife, referring to the music of the downstairs level where the less elite clientele skulked (and she herself had actually been poisoned, once). She could only assume that it was good "working" music for people that dabbled in the stealthier arts, as they did, or at least a common sonic backdrop. She appreciated it for just the same reason.

Thane wasn't an animal lover—in fact, the concept seemed to befuddle him a bit—but he listened when she lamented her nomadic military lifestyle for not being able to have a dog. Jane admitted to not being a huge reader, but all the same, they agreed to share literature from their home worlds since he had such a distinct fondness for it, and wanted to share it with her.

Before she'd had a chance to finish her beer, he'd pulled her into another kiss, and when they parted, she laid her head on his chest. Under his breath, she could hear a subtle noise that was best described as a fluttering, or maybe a bubbling—she tried her best to ignore it, and drifted off into a thin, light sleep.

When a gentle alarm began its beeping song from the pile of armored carapace in the sitting room, she had risen, careful not to wake him. It was four thirty—a point chosen to give her ample time to return to the Normandy's dock, without him, so as to not pique suspicion. Jane leaned down, pulled the bedsheet they had shared to his shoulders, and departed to dress for her work day.

Discretion was the word, for now, but she had to admit—as sexy as it was to sneak around and have affairs, it wouldn't break her heart have it exposed. It would mean getting to share this with other people; the comfortable silences, the budding trust, and the restfulness she felt after being with him, even after only three and a half hours of sleep. It was a far cry from the fluttering, crushing infatuations of youth, and she quite liked it that way.

Shepard made sure the alarm on his time piece was set for five o'clock, and departed, leaving the keycard on a table by the door.

* * *

"It has all the hallmarks of a hate crime, surely." The blue-purple of the holographic star before her reflected off of the embossed honeycomb of her bodysuit, lighting her in shades of lavender, sapphire. The woman stood facing it, a hand on her chin in thought. "If the records seized by Vakarian are any indication, it's not an isolated event. It's worrying."

"We will look closer at the records when Shepard returns—until then, no official action is to be taken." He sat behind her in a simple swiveling chair, posture unbowed, tone even. "It has to appear as if she's the one spearheading this investigation, so the integrity of it remains intact. Even she has to be kept in the dark on this one." He rolled the end of his cigar in its tray, peeling off the dead ashes that threatened to smother the cherry at the end.

Miranda understood—if anyone on the Citadel got wind of a human-interested organization like Cerberus being involved in the racial SNAFU in the Wards, even looking in its direction funny, it would fan the flames of discontent, and make the conflict they feared was bubbling beneath the surface erupt. "As worrying as the situation on the Citadel is, that's not the reason for our meeting, Lawson. Is there a reason why the Commander has ignored my request for an audience since her little stunt at the Collector base, or am I to believe she's simply forgotten?"

"Aside from the incident on the Citadel, not that I know of." Miranda responded, pacing. The muted click of her kitten heels was the only sound in the room, besides the soft smoldering of cigar ashes. She looked at her reflection in the wall, all black glass, shining her lithe form back at her, dark hair blotted out. The lines under her eyes that had popped up in the last month or so worried her.

"Her private message inbox details quite a few requests for her time. She's a busy woman—people want a piece of her. She can't help that."

"It sounds suspiciously like you're making excuses, Miranda. It's not like you." Miranda swallowed at the admonishment, head down. "Our causes should be the foremost concern, especially considering she still takes up residence on a Cerberus frigate. Please emphasize that." He took a leisurely drag from a glass of expensive bourbon. Miranda could smell it from where she stood, some paces away.

"Understood... but I'd like to indicate that our approval rating has climbed since bringing her on board." She pointed out. "Our crew members are happier—re-enlistment is up. Even public opinion of Cerberus is the highest its been in years. Decades, even."

He stared at her, unnaturally piecing blue-green eyes glowing, lighting the lines around his mouth, deep as canyons. "I admit to being unfamiliar with your new habit of arguing direct orders."

Miranda took a deep breath. "Not arguing, sir. Suggesting—perhaps giving her a few days to do some face work is necessary. Leverage the victory of the Omega-four relay mission. Shepard's a hero... if people start associating her with Cerberus, they'll associate the victory with Cerberus. Put us over the top."

"As nice as that would be, " he replied, "the Reapers care surprisingly little for who or what is associated with who. I would like to give you time, considering the work you've done, but it's not mine to give, Lawson."

Miranda sighed. "Understood."

"You're an intelligent woman. One of the most intelligent I've had the pleasure of working with," he pointed out, "I'm sure you understand my reasoning, Miranda."

She nodded. "I do, and I agree. Doctor Chakwas has yet to affirm Operative Taylor's reports of her physical integrity—I've set up an examination for when she returns. I'll direct her here."

"Directing is fine, but you're her second in command... a position I put you in for a reason. If necessary, club her and drag her here. I want her in my sights by the end of today."

"Aye aye, sir."

"That's all. You're dismissed, Lawson."

A door slid open on the far side of the room, a tiny white rectangle against the dark glass box, and Miranda strode purposefully towards it. He didn't watch her go, gaze intent on the star before him, staring but not seeing, expression blank and oddly sharp all at once, his cigar held aloft between two fingers.

There was no immediate, impending danger to report. The Reapers had not started moving again, at least to his knowledge—and if something hadn't happened to his knowledge, it hadn't happened. With no impossible heroic mission to entice her, with no romantic crusade, no victims, no villains, Shepard was as good as out the door; she was a frustratingly obtuse woman whose talents lay chiefly in persuasion, and perhaps combat, if the stars were aligned correctly. But above all, luck—pure, ass-backwards luck of the god damned draw was Shepard's strongest suit. If the woman walked to the store, or picked her nose, or even went to the bathroom, there would be a squad of people waiting there with the skills to do it for her, and she would talk them into it. It was maddening, because it meant at any one time she had a small, completely loyal army at her disposal, and she only recruited the best. She had good taste, that much could be admitted. It also meant that he had to tread lightly. Retaining Shepard's services with no mutual enemy while still giving her the illusion of the headstrong, swaggering freedom that was so inherent in her nature would be a thin line to walk indeed, one that meant that the game was no longer in his favor. With Shepard having the hardy loyalty of almost twenty of the galaxy's best and brightest, including his second-in-command, her hand would win should she call.

Plainly, the Illusive Man did not take well to losing, and as current events went, this was a set-up for a Big Fucking Loss.

That only meant one thing: at this point, there was nothing left to do but re-shuffle the deck, even if he had to bluff to do it.


	5. What Better Place Than Here

It was early in the morning. _Too_ early, as far as a considerable chunk of the _Normandy_'s crew was concerned; having Shepard on board had moved the effective start of their workday ahead by an hour. She had insisted on a traditional Marine Corps bugle call—"To the Colors" or just "Colors", as it was affectionately known—being played every morning at six a.m, an hour before work was to officially begin. It was window dressing, a simple decorative gesture with the intention of placating Shepard, and the crew of seventy-eight saw little charm in the antiquated ceremony at first. However, these days most seemed used to it, with the correct application of coffee and a hefty dose of perspective.

This morning, after standing at attention for the call (during which she could see Joker saluting, though he couldn't stand, and a little part of her chest swelled with pride for him), Shepard settled in at her terminal, already scowling at her inbox and drinking from her everpresent mug of coffee. The holographic galactic map beside her already showed the tiny little Normandy making a tiny little jump towards what was probably a tiny little mass relay when Kelly arrived at ten after six.

Kelly approached with a styrofoam cup in hand, and set it down beside the commander, not sure what else to do with it.

"You're here early, Commander. Early night last night?"

Jane glanced at the auxiliary coffee, chugged the last two mouthfuls of her original cup, and started on the new offering. "Not by a long shot." She paused in appraising silence, then gave her assistant a thumps-up. "You're an angel, Kelly."

Kelly gave her a crooked, bashful smile. Kelly always expected harsher reprimands out of Shepard than she ended up getting, and finally figured that she was probably projecting; Shepard had treated her like a peer rather than a subordinate. She did that with everyone of a certain rank, really. "Just tell me if you need another, okay?"

"You should probably just ask Chakwas for one of her IV drips. Probably a more efficient way of doing it." Shepard's eyes came close to crossing, trying to examine the tiny text on her screen. She shook her head and pushed back away from her desk.

"I'm going to go check on Joker. If the Illusive Man harasses you, tell him to shove it."

Kelly giggled. It was a giddy, tinkling noise that became peppered with gentle snorts if she _really_ got going. She nodded. "Aye aye, ma'am."

Shepard circled around Kelly, and strode to the front of the room, down the catwalk to the main pilot's helm. Joker turned around at the sound of her footsteps, his expression making the leap from neutral to saucer-eyed and agape in a matter of split seconds.

"Morning sunsh—_whoa_, what happened to your face? You look like a panda bear." Then, as an afterthought, "I have to get a picture of this."

"By that you mean cute and cuddly, right?" Shepard asked, voice mock-offended. "And I will break both you _and _your camera."

"Yeah, sure." Joker replied, straight-faced. "Cute, cuddly, exactly what I meant."

"If we could navigate from the topic of my mistreated face for a bit..." Jane said, exasperated, "I've plotted a course for Omega, if you can tell me when we get close."

"Sure thing, Commander. If you're going to buy a new face, I hear that's the place to do it."

"_Joker..._"

"Kidding, kidding! Jeez. Everyone's so touchy."

Beside him, a pleasant jolt of blue-white light assembled itself into a globe on a shallow stint, glowing, and EDI's voice filled the chamber. "Common knowledge of human cultural mores suggests only positive comments in regards to the female's physical appearance are suitable for most conversation, Jeff."

"Not surprising," Shepard put in, with preemptive self-satisfaction of a jibe well-delivered, "considering Joker doesn't have _any_ knowledge of women, let alone common."

Joker huffed a sigh, and spun back to his control panel. "Fine, fine, you win. Jerks."

"The first step to understanding a strange life form is to communicate with it, Jeff." EDI continued, tone maddeningly diplomatic. "Perhaps conversations with the female crew members could help in this regard."

Joker turned his head slightly towards EDI's panel and, before he could retort, the hologram shook and collapsed, with no further wisdom to impart. Shepard bit her lips to keep from laughing.

"You _claim_ to not have a sex, EDI," Joker mumbled, "but you sure do gang up like a girl."

* * *

Omega was as it had ever been. It smelled like stale rainwater capped with a faint whiff of burning garbage, and even from outside the dock, Shepard could hear rowdy yelling and the thick, vital sound of bustling crowds—thousands of pairs of stomping feet, laughing, the din of street vendors. She heard Samara follow from the _Normandy_'slanding ramp at her back, the heels of her shoes tapping on the ground in a delicate cadence. Shepard turned to her; Samara was draped with a shawl, deep red and made of a luxurious fabric that looked like silk. A single, tiny jewel dangled from the middle of the hood, above and between her eyes. It was the closest to 'dressed up' that any of the women on board ever got.

Samara looked around.

"You're sure this is where you want to be dropped off?" Shepard asked, readjusting the helmet tucked under her arm. Her tone was skeptical; contrasted with Samara's poise, Omega looked even more like a garbage heap than usual. "We can swing by another system, if you want."

Garrus, the ever-present figure at Shepard's side when she left the _Normandy,_ followed after the asari, peering around after touching down.

Samara turned to stare at Shepard, blinked her blue-silver eyes, and then looked into the distance. "No. This is where the guidance of the Goddess is most needed, and so, I shall be her arm."

Shepard briefly wondered if Morinth's residence on Omega had anything to do with this, but didn't say as much. Garrus was looking at the back of Samara's head with an expression of grave understanding: he had the same idea, once upon a time.

"Walk with me, Shepard."

Shepard did. The three of them made the walk to the markets without so much as an exchanged word; Garrus and Shepard glanced at each other, unsure, but Samara was distracted, taking in the scenery, the smells, the throbbing music from far off clubs. Her hippy, confident walk attracted many shouts, all of which she ignored, seemingly in her own small world. They passed many sets of doors. A batarian stood on a crate, screaming religious zealotry to all who would hear. The three approached the staircase leading the markets proper, and stopped. The crowd split around them, flowed past them, like water breaking over rocks in a stream.

Samara took a deep breath, regarding the bustling crowd, and then turned to her companions that stood fanned out behind her, and offered a polite smile. Shepard tilted her head; it was silly, but she felt a bit like a father must, giving away a daughter to an unknown and scary world. Only this woman was old enough to be her grandmother many times over, and instead of a nervous man, it was Omega that Samara was preparing to be married to, until death she did part, most likely. Hot tears pricked Shepard's eyes, and she was all at once acutely aware why she did not do goodbyes: because she did not _do _goodbyes_._

Samara moved to her, and Shepard accepted the hug willingly. It was neither brief nor professional, as before—Samara squeezed her, face laid against the side of Shepard's neck. When Samara pulled back, her eyes were shining, and she laughed a raspy, embarrassed bark at her own emotion. It was a genuine sound, and a touch raw.

Samara looked to the side, to Garrus, and he extended a two-fingered hand which she took, and shook, holding it for a moment afterwards.

"Goodbye, Samara." Shepard's voice shook the slightest bit. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

Samara nodded, her expression calm. No tears were shed, but she had come dangerously close. "Goodbye, Shepard. Please... be well."

Then she was gone, turning and falling in step with the bustling crowd, weaving out of sight.

For a long time, there was nothing but the sound of the crowd.

"I think she'll do fine here," Garrus said, gently, breaking their personal silence. "She was right. Omega needs her."

Shepard looked down, wiped her eyes with a hand. Garrus reached out, grasped her shoulder, and squeezed in a display of support.

"Sorry," Shepard said, embarrassed. Garrus' mandibles fluttered at her, a precursor to a laugh but not quite.

"Ah, the iron maiden _does_ have a soft side," he said. Reflexive, Shepard turned and kicked him in the shin with a resounding CLANK; he barked a sudden protest, mingled with surprised laughter.

"Why did the good one leave and I'm stuck with you?" Shepard pantomimed reeling back for another kick and Garrus hobbled away, holding out a hand in half-hearted defense. Behind him, from the corner of her eye, Shepard spotted a box nestled in a vendor's kiosk, covered in dust and neglected.

Interest in abusing Garrus forgotten for the moment, Jane shoved him out of the way and thumped down the stairs, pushing through the flow of people like a minnow fighting the stream, and leaned over the counter. She got a good look at the box's contents—there must have been at least fifteen paperback books in there, and from what it looked like, they were all in English. She could see a cover she recognized: an impossibly gangly, stylized illustration of a human man wrapped in flaming newspaper, trying to shield himself from an offscreen threat. Bradbury. High school literature, but human literature, and a good example of it, too. She'd promised to find some for Thane, and was pleased greatly at her stroke of serendipitous luck, despite the tangle of sadness and remorse her mind was currently trying to untie.

Suddenly, in the back of her mind, a niggling, warning voice lambasted Shepard about even thinking of Thane at a time like this.

She pushed the though out of her head with an inner vow to stop being such a girlish ninny about it: she was doing something nice, a favor for a friend, and that was it. He liked books, and specifically asked for human books. Here they were, so she was making good on a promise—two promises, if you included Samara's.

The vendor, a salarian with purplish-black skin who was greedily stuffing his face with noodles from a steaming bowl, peered at her from his stool with a questioning grunt.

"How much for that box?" She asked, indicating it with an outstretched index finger.

He turned and gave it a look of interest, which immediately paled into disappointment. "...Eh. Hundred creds?"

Jane didn't argue the price, even though she knew they probably all sold for a tenth of that, especially in such a clumsy, archaic format. "I'll take it."

The two exchanged money, and the salarian passed Shepard the box with a look of acute disinterest in the cargo. Wow, there _were_ a lot of books in there.

Garrus peered at her, clucking his tongue thoughtfully, then bent over to take a gander at her newly-acquired treasure trove.

"Didn't exactly peg you as a big _reader_, Shepard." he mused, plucking one book from the pile and dusting it off. It had downy brown rabbits on the cover, frolicking in a field of emerald grass.

Jane gave him a wary look. "If you say _anything _about big words..."

He shrugged, all feigned innocence. "Me? Never. I'm simply... complimenting you on the maturity of your reading material." He tapped the cover with a talon, indicating a bunny rabbit. "That's all."

"Hey. _Watership Down_ is a very mature title." Shepard protested, snatching the book from him.

"Of course. By the way, when _is_ craft night? I haven't finished my macaroni duck. I've been meaning to ask; can I borrow your glitter glue?"

Shepard reared back to kick him in the shin again and he _hopped._

"Hurting my feelings _and_ my award-winning legs? Tsk, tsk."

"Just figured the _Normandy _could use some human culture, being a human frigate and all." Jane explained, giving him a hearty, playful shove. "Given my present company, _culture_ might be a stretch."

This back-and-forth behavior continued most of the way back to the ship, but never erupted into a full-blown fight, much to the chagrin of passers-by.

* * *

Somewhere across the station, while Garrus and Jane were saying goodbye to a trusted friend, Thane was saying hello to one. Thane hadn't officially been given any kind of leave, but that had never stopped him from leaving the _Normandy_ before—for air, for medicine, for shopping. He had assumed they'd be docking at Omega for an hour or better; today, on the surface of this very specific station, Thane had a Job.

There were stairs, lots of stairs. The air was heavy, thick and smelled like rain; the moisture irritated his throat, chest solid with a phlegmy swelling, expanding but not drawing in enough air. As Thane ascended the narrow, soaring staircase, he'd had to stop once or twice to succumb to a wet, hacking coughing fit, one which had nearly resulted in vomiting. It was like having arthritis in an internal organ; most of the time they did what he needed them to, but other times they yelled, burned, made him into a miserable heap of a man that felt much older than his forty years should... especially after doing something as mundane as simply climbing a staircase. His eyes watered, his surroundings floating in a haze of irritated tears.

The stair case was simple, carved from dark stone and beset on both sides by walls that hooded the heavy metal doorway barring entrance to the loft apartment at the top. The hallway was built this way on purpose, as a choke point. One person could fit up this staircase at a time, easy pickings if the owner found himself beset upon by enemies, which, on Omega, was a likely if not annual occurrence if you were worth more than a nickel. The man that owned this property was worth quite a few nickles, that much was for certain.

Thane arrived at the top, cleared his throat louder than he intended to, rapped on the door. He checked over a shoulder to make sure he'd not been followed.

An inch-wide slat in the door opened, and a pair of angry red eyes peered out, glaring at Thane from neck-height.

"What?"

"I'm here to speak to Jonathan." Thane said, voice froggy, and he cleared his throat again. "Excuse me."

"Yeah, alright, fucker_. _What's your name?"

"Krios."

'Yeah, sure."

They locked gazes. After a moment, the eyes narrowed, regarding him with skepticism, and the slat slammed shut. A minute or so later, the jingling clanks of heavy locks being released on the other side of the door rang their rusty sing-song, and the door creaked open. The krogan on the other side—hunched, suspicious, and very intimate with violence if his scars were any indication—looked at Thane with a species of violent mistrust that said _Just give me a reason._ Thane nodded his thanks, adjusted his collar, and continued inside.

The 'office' was as indulgent as Thane remembered it. It was a flat, with a broad, vaulted sitting room, painted eggshell white. The hardwood floors were buffed to an immaculate finish, with a white fur rug, a glass coffee table, and dark blue leather furniture in the center of the room. A large fireplace was crackling inside the far wall, and the dry, warm atmosphere immediately soothed Thane's aching chest, like a dose of airborne medicine. The heat smelled divine, and the shallow, grooved pits under his ears, used to sense direction by heat, felt dry and relaxed, out of the cold air and moisture.

Sitting on the sectional sofa was a corps of eight bodyguards. They were playing cards, what looked like Skyllian Five-Poker (or what Thane had learned in his adolescence to call _Watch Me_), throwing down cards onto the glass table and cheering, betting what looked to be cigarettes.

However, there was an interesting fact about the guards—two of them were drell, a male and a female, with skin so dark it was almost black, blotched with warped stripes of copper. They were watching Thane pass with wary, disbelieving expressions, a dissonant sight against the jovial crush of their seat mates. The male was tense, but it was the female caught Thane's eye—she was young, perhaps fresh from late adolescence, with orange-ringed, unaltered eyes. She had the soft fringe of back pointed, nubby fins bisecting her head like a tiny mohawk, a common trait in drell females of sexual maturity, just as males tended towards frills that lined their back jaw.

He held her gaze just a beat too long for it to be casual eye contact. Thane was the one to break it, and he strode into Jonathan's office.

"I'll be a son of a bitch!" The man exclaimed as he came into view, hopping up from his seat, rounding the sizable oak desk to greet Thane where he stood. David Jonathan was a man that may have been handsome if not for a pronounced cleft palate that he had grown a thick beard and mustache to cover; he kept his dark hair cropped close and combed back, and was more fond of expensive clothing than expensive bodyguards. "Krios?! Holy shit, I thought you were dead!"

"Close." Thane said, and shook Jonathan's hand when the human extended his hairy-knuckled paw. "Business is well, I assume? Your home is beautiful." It was true--even Jonathan's office was like something out of a décor magazine, decorated tastefully in burgundy and deep red. A framed painting of a cityscape hung on the back wall, and against the right of the room stood an elaborate display of stacked, decorative wine glasses on top of an expensive-looking armoir. His window was closed, thankfully, the cold, moist air kept at bay for the moment.

"You know. Same as it ever was. And thanks, man." Jonathan indicated the large oak chair opposite his desk, offering it to Thane. "Heard you knocked off Nassana over on Illium a few months back. Had guys trying to get at her for _months._"

"I had help." Thane sat. "I've come to ask you a favor, Jonathan."

"Yeah, yeah, of course," Jonathan said, unflapped. Most people came to him for favors, not to say hello and compliment his rugs. He sat, and pulled his chair close with a muted screech of wooden legs on tile. "What do you need? Lay it on me."

"There was an incident earlier this week on the Citadel."

"Yeah, the one with Shepard." Jonathan uncorked a fluted crystal bottle of whiskey, dug under his desk and came up with two matching shot glasses.

"Two assassins attacked her. Who were they?" Thane waved a hand as if to say 'no thank you', and Jonathan returned one of the glasses to its shelf.

"Well, that's some expensive intel, Krios." Jonathan said, pouring himself a drink. "It'll cost you. _Discounted_, for old times' sake, but—I'm runnin' a business here, you know?"

"Of course." Thane allowed, clasping his hands. "Name your price."

Jonathan took his shot, and came out of it looking like he'd just sucked on a lemon. "Last I heard you didn't get caught up in politics. You gonna knock the Commander off?"

It was a half-assed question, one meant as a joke, mostly. Thane's expression was neutral, and his lack of immediate response suggested Jonathan may have touched on something _heavy_. "She has enemies," Thane replied, at length, "I prefer to have information on my competition so I may learn from their mistakes." It wasn't a lie; just phrased to sound like one.

Jonathan's eyes were the size of dinner plates. He let out a long, low whistle. "That's gotta be a big one. Set you for life."

Thane shrugged. "My interest is not in the money."

Jonathan grinned, realization dawning in his eyes. "Conquest, eh? You sick fuck." His laugh suggested he didn't think Thane quite as sick as he led on, and he leaned across the desk, pushed Thane's shoulder hard in a gesture of good-humored understanding. "And what a conquest she is, ah? You're gonna piss off a lot of little kids, there, Krios. It's like putting a slug in Superman's computer."

Thane smiled, polite, though the reference eluded him completely.

"Well, let's make the trade." Jonathan looked at his watch, and balled his hand into a fist; the telltale golden glow of a rudimentary omni-tool lit the immediate vicinity in a soft golden wash. He hit a few buttons on the console, and extended his arm to Thane to verify the amount displayed on the inside of his wrist. "I'll give you the info on the assassins for ten k. Sound fair?"

Thane reached into his jacket, wordless, and retrieved a tiny metal cylinder about the size of a small pencil attached to a chain. It stretched taut against something under his coat. Jonathan kept his arm extended, letting Thane swipe the tube over his watch. Jonathan briefly checked the display for the correct amount of credits transferred, hit a button, and the light disappeared.

"Alright, well. Let's start with the asari." He reached into the drawer of his desk, retrieved a flimsy, white plastic frame around the size of a sheet of paper, with a clear sheet of plastic comprising the center. He toyed with the omni-tool again, and Thane could see the information downloading onto the disposable tablet, pictures, forms, and status bars flickering as the information was transferred onto the clear mini-monitor from some remote location connected to the tool surrounding Jonathan's arm.

Finally, Jonathan pushed it the tablet to Thane, and Thane picked it up.

"Name was Noyala Rhem. Your run of the mill Eclipse Sisters rung-climbing trash. She was somewhere around Sergeant status, I'd say." Mugshots. Her skin was deep blue, with a spotted-white scalp, and a heavy brow. "Not worth a second look. Dime a dozen."

"The _turian_'s where it gets interesting. Her name was Kirre Farraj. _She_ was the actual assassin there—had a pretty esteemed military history with the Fleet." Thane scrolled. The woman _was_ a turian, surely; her eyes were unsettling, her face unsmiling, and she had a powerful, angular build. "Recon scout for most of her career, then full-on spy work, then she was court-marshalled and lost her commission over falsified records on one of her assignments concerning some quarian brass. Dropped out, went AWOL. Word is that Farraj was pretty deep in debt to the Eclipse sisters for one reason or another, so she was training Noyala as a way to pay them off. Got her to do her legwork—workers in the office, clearing the rooms, shit like that, so Farraj could take the real targets out in peace. Doesn't seem like it worked out that way this time, though."

"Farraj was training Rhem?" Thane asked. "This was to be a test?"

"No idea what the intentions were. But it looks that way. Kinda stupid, in hindsight... you test your kids on politicians and vid stars, not in close-quarters with the galaxy's number one ranked badass. Shepard's some Bruce Willis shit. Why not just snipe her and be done with it?"

"Poor execution." Thane said, with an obvious edge of distaste. "Sloppy."

"Anyway, those are your assassins. Normal rules with the plexi-tablet... don't get it wet, try to take the slug out in the next few days. Should keep, though."

Thane scrolled through the content. "This doesn't say who hired them."

Jonathan laughed, loud and full.

"Well," he said, smiling wide, and laced his fingers over his potbelly, kicked his feet up on his desk, "that's because you didn't pay me to tell you who hired 'em. That's an extra thirty, my friend."

Thane narrowed his eyes, almost imperceptibly. He was not a man who had problems parting with money, especially for important reasons, but he _was_ a man that had problems with being taken advantage of.

"Steep."

"We live in hard times. Got five kids to feed and send to school. Your 'discount' is that I'm willing to give you the information at all. Selling this info is likely to get you spaced... but I trust you, 'cause I know if it comes to it, you'll hit 'em before they can hit me back. Always liked that about you."

Thane gave the plexi-tablet another cursory look, then put it back down. He reached into his jacket, once again groping for his credit chit, and brought it out, ready to swipe. When Jonathan didn't reciprocate, he canted his head.

Jonathan's expression was surprised, amused. "Damn, you're serious." He extended the arm again, allowing the transfer of credits, and gave the display an appreciative once-over, before pulling out another tablet, and once again starting a download.

"Malinda Cashin ordered the hit." He said, plainly, by way of explanation.

Thane tucked the chit away, and Jonathan could see the chain was tucked into a pocket on his shirt, like an antique watch. "I don't recognize the name."

"Then you're gonna jump out of your little alien penny loafers. Get this shit." Jonathan turned the tablet to Thane, and scrolled the screen to reveal a photo of a human woman—older, short, with curly cropped white hair, waving to a crowd of jubilant humans. _She's a politician._ Thane thought, immediately.

"Malinda Cashin is the current incumbent intendant of Zakera Wards on the Citadel." Jonathan explained, as Thane leaned over the frame, scrolling through the security photos. "She's had the job for the past fifteen years. The order for the hit, the money—everything came from her office."

Thane's world canted a bit, the information striking his brain in a queer, sharp way that made him doubt that Jonathan could possibly tie his own shoes if he believed it to be true.

"I'm not sold." Thane said simply. "It's too convoluted."

"Well, then, allow me to sell you." Jonathan clasped his hands together on the desk. "Talid's been kickin' the shit out of her in the polls, since humans... we tend to be apathetic creatures unless we're directly threatened. Cashin needs an equalizer. A _big _one, or she's out of a job, and there's suddenly a very real problem with the validation of anti-human sentiment on the Citadel.

Knocking off the only human Spectre would rally human voters the way that Talid's been pissing off the rest of them. Scare 'em. The assassins weren't human, right? Easy to pin it on savage aliens. Talid's been the first real challenge Cashin's had for her job in years. Looks like he orders a hit on a human hero, bam, people are pissed off. And pissed off people are the only people that vote. If they're pissed off _and_ scared? Well... that's about as sure a slam dunk as you're gonna find outside... well, assassinating your opponent."

"Ordering a hit on Talid directly would have made him a martyr," Thane mused, and Jonathan nodded.

"Now you're getting it."

Thane flipped through the files, trying to find something to disprove the theory—there were account screens, showing the transfers of credits, pages upon pages of hacked messages showing the back-and-forth of logistics planning in the encrypted shorthand he'd come to read as a second language, used for drug deals and illicit black market information swapping.

He turned back to Cashin's photograph, took in her squinting, smiling eyes, her sloping jaw, the pocket of grandmotherly fat that laid between it and her throat. Her hands, veiny with age.

"Well? Like what you see?"

Malinda Cashin, career politician, age 58. No career details that would suggest combat training. Office deductions detailed the salaries of ten professional bodyguards.

Thane would cross-reference, check the information. Cross-_cross_-check it, if he had to. Even Jonathan was fallible, but given his reputation and Thane's personal experiences with Jonathan's information, it wasn't likely. Unfortunately, he was cagey, and his dossiers were notorious for their accuracy and thoroughness.

Thane squinted his eyes.

"Yes. Thank you, Jonathan. This is precisely what I needed."

"You know me. Always here to help." Jonathan said, smiling, regarding Thane with an ill-concealed species of appraisal. It was an ugly smile, full of motive; men like Jonathan were always full of motive one way or another. "Keep me updated, you hear?"


	6. Into the Ocean

"_Oh my God--I have no idea where we are but if anyone can hear this, there are some of us still alive down here. The--"_

"Captain," the pilot said, turning from her station, "there's something on our scanners, sir."

She was pretty--a petite thing that wore her hair pulled into a high bun--but in a harmless, round way that suggested she was closer to the teenage end of the spectrum than most people on board. She looked at him expectantly, over a shoulder, and the Captain approached, leaned close over her to look out of the cockpit's front window.

He narrowed his eyes. They both listened to the distress beacon's fuzzy plea again, trying to pick up some conversational hint they may have missed. They were both bleary with fatigue, given how early it was, so it was possible that they had glossed over some small but important detail. The message had repeated itself about eighteen times by now, but they kept playing it while she scanned the planet, looking for a good drop point, trying to make some sense of a situation that was a sudden slap of mystery; was that a _human_ voice? Turian? Batarian--perhaps a trap? He couldn't tell.

The Captain turned. "Ensign, have we gotten word back yet from Command with regards to the beacon?"

The Ensign, an older woman of about forty or so, was trying her best to not nod off at her seat. She shook her head. "Not yet, Captain." He couldn't exactly blame her for her yawns; it was just coming up on twenty after three in the morning and the bridge was dark, the ship's navy blue interior giving off a sleepy atmosphere, but he would need her sharp going forward. The Captain drew himself another cup of coffee from the small, chrome-plated dispenser built against the wall of the bridge.

What a damn mess--as soon as the order had gone out from the batarian stronghold of Camala that one of their larger "servant transports" had gone missing and there was a sizable reward offered for its return, Alliance command had yanked the Captain and his crew out of bed and ordered them through the closest mass relay, only to have them drift out here, waiting on some bureaucrat to clear them to go in and do what they'd been woken up for; rescue the hostages, whom were assumed to be human. The military's whole philosophy had been "hurry up and wait" for as long as he'd been enlisted, but this was patently ridiculous, considering how immediate the need for action was. If they didn't grab the hostages, someone else would, and considering the batarian government had offered a handsome reward for the vessel's return, the interested parties would be falling fast and thick at any moment.

"Okay," the Pilot said, "I think I've got--uh... I'm picking up four other ships on our scanners, captain. Three unmarked, and one registered."

"Unmarked means mercenaries," he said, putting a hand on his face. "How did they _get_ here so damned fast?"

At that moment, the craving for a cigarette was acute and severe, but he quickly waved it away, blaming it on stress. He hadn't smoked in years, anyway. He fished a small pill bottle out of his pocket, shook out two of the capsules, and took them down with a swig of his coffee. His head hurt already, and that wasn't a good sign.

The Pilot turned and gave him a sympathetic look, as if preemptively knowing his response to words yet unspoken. "The other ship is a... Cerberus frigate, sir."

The Captain shook his head, not looking at her.

"Check it again. And Moore," he continued, turning back to the Ensign, "just in case, send that frigate an _official_ cease and desist warning. I want them OUT of here by the time we get back."

* * *

It was Grunt who'd heard the signal first aboard the _Normandy_.

He'd woken up in the middle of the night to a deep pang of hunger; his belly rumbled, complaining, though he'd eaten earlier_. _He got up, trudged to the door of the barren cargo bay he had declared as his territory. He opened the door, stumbling, half-asleep.

The hall was dark, lights pitched dim, with nobody milling about--just the creaks of the ship, the soft whirring of the air purification system, and a single figure departing from the elevator with a plate of _something_. Food. His stomach rumbled again.

Grunt stalked down the hallway and she turned to watch him, not moving from her place from in front of the elevator. He looked down at her. "Move."

"This is _my _deck." Jack responded, shoving a biscuit into her mouth and taking a bite. Her next words were muffled, and she made no move to cover her mouth. "I move when I fucking _feel_ like it."

Grunt put a hand on her shoulder and shoved her out of the way. She dropped her plate, then turned back to him and half-snarled, eyes narrowed. "I should take your head off for that."

He recognized it as posturing, and approved, even though she was small and soft.

"Mind to whom you speak," Grunt reached out and hit the "up" button on the elevator's directional panel, "your arms are puny, but would make a fine necklace. Already decorated."

Jack chuffed an unamused laugh. "Funny. Far as I remember, you _lost_ the last match we had," she said, and stalked away, facing him as she walked backwards. "Next time, that filthy Mick won't be there to save you."

That was untrue. Grunt had not _lost_ anything: he was still breathing, watching her form retreat slowly down the hallway, even as she challenged him, pale skin glinting white under the bright lighting. And she definitely enjoyed their bouts, judging by the grimacing smiles and laughter that pealed from her when they sparred. For all her krogan sensibilities, though, she was unlike the imprints of females he'd been given; she'd flatly refused mating rights after their first tussle, and thereafter had grudgingly accepted the intervention of Tali'Zorah and even Jacob, who'd come to investigate one of their messier matches (though to his credit, it DID tear a breach in the floor grating, though the melted wall plates didn't look expensive). At least, she hadn't killed them for their interference.

She was an intriguing creature.

The elevator arrived and Grunt stepped on, once again alone with his complaining belly. He put a hand on it, and peered down; no, not indigestion. Hopefully they'd had some more of those pro-teen bars. Those were delicious.

Then, as the elevator climbed, something pricked Grunt's ears and aroused a part of him keenly invested in the track, the hunt, the part of him that made his blood sing even while it was being shed--a man, a _human_ man, was screaming. Grunt hit the "Emergency Stop" button on the elevator, and bid it to return to the Combat Information Center, where the sounds were loudest.

"_Oh my God--I have no idea where we are but if anyone can hear this, there are some of us still alive down here. The--"_

Painted in the deep blues and greys of shadows on metal, the Information Center was empty, completely devoid of life, human or otherwise. Grunt sniffed the air; a small, pale arm was draped over the armrest of the pilot's chair, in the distance, ahead of him.

Grunt approached the chair from behind, heavy feet ringing on the metal floor grates, and turned it in a rough swivel to face him.

The pilot was asleep, snoring gently, head leaned back, his hat removed. Surely enough, erected from the panel before him was a spinning, blue, holographic beacon--a _distress_ beacon--that flooded the immediate area with soft lights, filling the premature crags in Joker's sleeping face, his hair spiked up in messy disarray. Grunt made a low sound of aggravation n his throat; he didn't necessarily _want_ to see Moreau dead, but this was much less exciting than what he was expecting.

"_Oh my God--I have no idea where we are but if anyone can hear this, there are some of us still alive down here. The--" _It garbled, and cut off, at that point. It waited ten seconds, and then repeated.

Grunt went to grab his Joker's shoulder, and then remembered what Shepard had told him about Moreau's weakness; Grunt cared little for breaking such a tiny sliver of a man unless it came in combat, unless it proved something. Dishonorable, even, to break one who came already broken such as this, you could say. Instead, he grabbed the back of Joker's chair, and shook it so hard that the metal anchoring it to the floor creaked.

Joker woke with a start, looked around, and visibly shrunk back from Grunt's looming countenance, crowding back in his seat until his back was pressing an indentation in the leather. Grunt wasn't _glaring_, but sometimes humans mistook even the most neutral of krogan expressions for grimaces or snarls. It mystified him, really, but didn't come as a surprise--humans always looked shocked and stupid to him, what with those strange white rings around their eyes and mouths that lolled open unless they made a concerted effort to keep them shut.

They locked gazes for a long, few seconds, and Grunt finally nodded his head to the distress beacon in lieu of any sort of oral communication. Joker gulped, and then grabbed the control panel. Grunt released his chair, allowing him to turn away.

"EDI, wake up Shepard," Joker said, "and please tell me this beacon hasn't been on for long."

"Five minutes and thirty seven seconds, Jeff," she replied, "sending a wake-up call now, flagged as urgent."

Grunt considered this. If it was important enough to wake the Battlemaster, she would need to be backed by her clan; they may be preparing for War. A large one, if it required Shepard's presence.

"I'll wake the turian." Grunt said.

"Y-yeah, you do that." Joker replied, and turned from Grunt, who couldn't help but grin as he saw the man's hands shake when he snatched up his head-cap from the floor.

As proud as they were, even humans' instinctive fear of those stronger than they suggested that their bodies knew their place in the natural order of things, even if their mouths denied it.

* * *

When the wake-up call sounded, Thane was already awake and alert.

He awoke with a slight start to a rapid-fire beeping from the vicinity of his jacket, slung over the back of a chair some paces in front of his bed. He pulled himself into a lean, on his side, and rubbed his eyes. His teeth were fuzzy, and his mouth tasted sour; had fallen asleep without washing up. He also realized with some belated horror that he'd forgotten to stow the plexi-tablet given to him by Jonathan, which sat on his table beside a box that he didn't recognize. He checked his time piece; three-forty-three a.m. He must have come in out of the rain, and simply fallen asleep as soon as he'd been able to take off his jacket.

It took Thane half a minute or so to find the earbud, after searching through what seemed like all of the pockets in his jacket (and there were a few). He turned the small white capsule in his fingers, checking to see if it had been tampered with. It was habit; they were quite easy to sneak explosives into, especially unguarded.

Satisfied, he turned it speaker-side in, pushed it into his aural canal, and it touched it with a fingertip, starting the relay. The string dangling from the bud, used for easy removal, laid down over his shoulder.

"Yes." His greeting was thick with sleep and slightly disoriented. There was no immediate response on the other end of the line, and he wondered if he'd let it ring so long the person initiating the call had finally given up.

Then, there was a breath in, and a jerky false-start. "A-ah... hey."

Thane would recognize that voice anywhere. It was young, not quite finished with the scratchy, atonal trill that would deepen and refine in adult years: it was his son, Kolyat.

Thane turned to check the small calendar beside his bed. It was a gift from Yeoman Chambers to "help him feel at home"; it had beautiful, full-color pictures of the various oceanic landscapes of Kahje, the Hanar homeworld on which most modern drell typically roosted. It was a sweet gesture, thoughtful, and he'd lacked the grace to deny it politely, so here it hung, useful but out of sorts with the hard, stoic edges and gleaming metal of the life support bay.

There was a small red check mark in the lower right of the box that symbolized tomorrow's date. Tomorrow was to be Thane and Kolyat's scheduled call, not today. As an afterthought, a tiny note that settled below the surface of conscious thought but didn't quite emphasize itself enough to breach that surface, Thane noticed that yesterday's box had a time written on it, an appointment that he'd missed. It was unlike him, but he'd been so tired... he was always tired, these days.

"Is there something the matter?" Thane asked, put out of sorts by the late time, and the unprecedented event of Kolyat initiating one of their dialogs. "Are you hurt?"

"Ah--nah, nah... nothing like that. I just... heard what happened," Kolyat explained, stammering defensively to fill the unexpected silence, stumbling over his words. Thane listened, closely; there was a thick layer of hesitation, distraction, Kolyat's words almost a slur.

Had he been _drinking_?

"With the Omega-four relay." Kolyat explained, "I know it's late, I just wanted to make sure, you know..."

_The Collector station..._ Thane thought, looking down. _Less than a week ago. That's right. _It felt like months. They'd not spoken since then; Kolyat had no way to know he was even still alive.

"Of course," Thane replied, "You needn't explain. You are always welcome, any time you wish. It's good to hear your voice." He felt vaguely uncomfortable speaking to Kolyat in this state: any positive ground made could be attributed to alcohol, and any negativity could also be chalked up to alcohol's tendency to reveal the truth. He was at a disadvantage, and had decided to cut the conversation short, when Kolyat swallowed, loud.

"Yeah, I--hey, listen."

Thane listened.

"...You there?"

"Apologies." Thane was distantly aware that speaking on the phone with him was a constant fight against his typical silence; more than once he'd been hung up on, because it was assumed the call had been dropped. "Yes. Continue."

"...uh. Well, did you wanna, maybe... if Shepard will let you go, Bailey's going to let _me_ go tomorrow. Early, you know. He's alright, sometimes."

Thane smiled a touch. It was good to hear that Kolyat and Bailey were getting on alright. "Kind of him. A special occasion?"

"Yeah..." Kolyat paused, expectantly, and when no other words came, he continued with dwindling enthusiasm, until his voice was no more than a mumble. "...it's... my birthday, tomorrow. You know what, forget it. This was a bad idea."

Thane felt a sudden, dry blast of frustration; at himself, at his lazy forgetfulness, and at his tired body for distracting him. But mostly for Kolyat--his son had to put up with so much already, and was giving him a second chance when it would be so much easier to simply cut Thane out of his life, permanently. It felt like Thane repaid him with misstep after misstep, insult after unintended insult.

"I cry your pardon, Kolyat. It's been--"

"Busy. Yeah... I know." Kolyat still sounded wounded, bitter, but was resigned rather than angry. "Been saving the galaxy. Got bigger things to worry about. I got it."

"No." Thane cut in, a trifle sterner than he intended. "A date had slipped my mind, but nothing is more important to me than you are. Do not forget that."

The line was quiet for a long, long time.

"Kolyat."

"Yeah." Kolyat said, finally, and Thane could still hear a touch of simmering resentment in his voice. "If you're not busy, then, we can... I don't know. Have a beer or something." He muttered, tone suggesting that he expected this was a stupid idea from the outset, and his fears had been confirmed.

"I would like that, very much." Thane replied. "I will request the time for tomorrow evening, and we will celebrate." He would have to bring a gift--Thane realized with a mild, flailing sense of helplessness that even if he wanted to buy something, he didn't know what Kolyat liked, was interested in. Nothing at all.

The shuttle of the automated door sounded some steps away, and Thane turned to see Garrus half-leaned in the jamb, a towel draped over his head for reasons unknown. Garrus made a loud, strident noise that was not quite a birdlike chirp and not quite a whistle between two of his front teeth to get Thane's attention.

"Shepard says we've gotta go be heroes in ten minutes. Get dressed, and I'll see you down there."

Thane paused, and Kolyat spoke up first. "We'll talk later, I guess." Then, at length, "Be careful, 'hero'."

He disconnected from the other line, leaving Thane listening to dead-air static.

* * *

Shepard was leaned over Joker's shoulder, peering out of the _Normandy_'s front window. If the two officers had been able to see into each other's ships, they most likely would have either laughed or recoiled at the similarities in conversation and body language.

"EDI, do you have a drop point?"

"Negative. Planet _Alida_'s atmospheric water content contains dangerously high levels of mercury, making transmissions and pin-pointing using the _Normandy_'s technology inaccurate."

"Do we need breathing apparatuses when we drop?" Shepard asked, raising an eyebrow, though the gesture meant little-to-nothing to an AI.

"Negative. Short-term exposure yields few ill effects; however, ingestion of the planet's water is strongly discouraged."

It was about this time that Garrus approached Shepard from behind, and Thane bounded in a swift jog to catch up with him at her flank. She stood, and regarded them over her shoulder.

"Did you catch that? Known Blue Sun activity in the area, and a batarian servant transport vehicle en route to Camala was reported MIA five hours ago in this sector."

Thane's expression grew darker by degrees, but he said nothing.

Garrus cocked his head. "Are we assuming there were _slaves_ on board?"

"Seems to be what they're reporting. The batarian government's put out a sizable reward for anyone that can locate the ship and return the contents to them. Twenty million credits, from the reports."

"The _contents._" Thane repeated, with a skeptical emphasis.

"Regardless of what we think of the situation now," Shepard responded, in order to note that his shift in tone had not gone unnoticed, "the survivors are our priority. The politics can come later."

"...wait. You're gonna turn them in for the bounty?" Joker asked, peering up at her. "That's cold blooded, Commander."

"You know me better than that, Joker. We're going to secure as many as possible, and take them back to Alliance space." Shepard shrugged. "Best we can do. We'll need a transport shuttle called in, possibly."

The unspoken suggestion that she was being optimistic--perhaps overly so--hung in the air, but went without comment.

"Long-range scanners report one small craft identifying itself as an Alliance reconnaissance ship approximately twenty-three minutes from our position." EDI said, suddenly, "It is requesting the _Normandy _vacate the area, citing Code 876 paragraph C clause two of the Alliance Rules of Engagement."

Thane furrowed his brow. "A... specific request."

"What the hell does that _mean_, anyway?" Garrus asked, turning to Shepard.

"It means they want us to get the hell out so they can sit in orbit and wait for clearance from Alliance command to go in." Shepard mused, thinking. "They haven't been given permission to respond to the beacon yet. They're trying to threaten us with court-marshall or worse if we don't comply."

"So, in English, they're calling 'dibs'." Garrus chided.

"Essentially, you are correct." EDI agreed, at length.

Thane blinked, all at once mildly impressed and put off.

Shepard didn't respond. "We're going in anyway. I'm not going to sacrifice survivors just so some wet-nosed NCO can grab some chest candy. EDI, tell them to screw themselves and then get us as close to that beacon as you can. We'll cover the ground on foot. Just make sure you don't drop us in the ocean."

"I love the smell of insurmountable odds in the morning," Garrus remarked, taking a deep breath in. "Just like old times."

* * *

"Captain," Ensign Moore turned, "the Cerberus frigate has blocked communications. An official message was attached."

The Captain turned. "What's the message?"

"It says 'screw yourselves'."

His face was impassive. He cleared his throat. "The name of that ship is the _Normandy_, isn't it?"

The Pilot tapped keys, checked her monitor. It was a solid twenty seconds or so before she turned around, as well. He met her gaze, this time.

"...aye aye, sir. I'm also showing a second reticule on Alida's surface. They're looking for a drop point, too."

The Captain swallowed, dark eyes flashing. The only thing worse than the hostages falling into the hands of mercenaries, people who didn't care that they would be selling people back into _slavery_, was _Cerberus. _Cerberus who had tested on living human beings; Cerberus who had sent units of Marines up against threshers on Akuze for "science", Cerberus who managed to snap up the corpse of the galaxy's greatest hero and brainwash her.

He was certain that was still the case. If that Cerberus frigate wasn't out of here by the time he was back, he'd order the guns turned on that damned ship, as a matter of loyalty to her. Who she _was._

The Captain didn't bark--he was not a barking man. He simply raised his voice a pitch, and said: "Idle, Ronson, suit up. We're going in."

"But--" Moore started to protest, suddenly alert, and he cut her off.

"I'm not waiting for those people to be collected and given to the highest bidder while I'm in command of this ship. If brass wants my pound of flesh for this, they can take it _after_ the hostages are safe. Serena, find us a drop point, and get us in there. Now."

Serena, unused to his sudden shift in tone--from diplomatic and expressive to stern and commanding--was visibly taken aback.

"A-aye aye, Captain Alenko." She replied, and returned to her work.

* * *

From orbit, she looked like any other vegetation-heavy planet, all blues and greens and swirling white clouds, but from the surface, _Alida_ was beautiful, like something you may see on a postcard flocked with the words _"Wish You Were Here"_. The drop vessel, a small ship in its own right that Garrus usually guided to the surface of planets with practice and expertise, had landed, cocked slightly, on a wedge of white-sand beach with a graceless crash. They had a minor incident when his maps and GPS systems went out, over the ocean, and he'd had to guide them by sight alone; Thane had sat ramrod straight in his seat, refusing to look down, and was unusually quiet, even for him, for the rest of the ride.

Their current location was sandwiched between a stretching oceanic horizon and a huge forest packed with towering trees, trees so immense that even from this far away, they threw an emerald green tint over parts of the beach. Shepard could see a curtain of vines hanging down between the trunks, obscuring the terrain beyond. Birds sang somewhere far away, and the air was hot, thick with the buzzing of insects and the chittering of life underfoot.

Shepard held up her omni-tool, but no directions and no advice from EDI sprang forth. She tilted her head, then her wrist, eying it distrustfully.

"Must be the mercury," Garrus observed, looking up to the sky, shielding his eyes with a hand, "guess it's knocked out _all_ communications."

"They may have seen us on our descent." Thane pointed out, and Garrus thought on this for a long moment. "We would be wise to seek cover."

"Good idea." Garrus replied. Shepard agreed as well, wordlessly, and they began moving forward, out of the sand and into the waist-height grasses that stood between the beach and the knolls on which the forest sat. "_Plus_, if we have to fight them through the forest, the lack of visibility gives us an advantage, since we have fewer numbers to conceal."

Shepard stopped for a moment, narrowed her eyes to the forest before her, and slapped Garrus on the chest with the back of her hand. "Is that smoke?"

Garrus looked at her, confused, then gazed off into the distance. He fiddled with the controls on his eyepiece, squinting until she saw he had zoomed it to a satisfactory distance. "...Yeah, that's smoke. Lots of it."

"That's our 'beacon', then," Shepard said, and whatever optimism she'd had coming in seemed to drain from her, into the sand, soaking into it beneath her feet. "Come on, let's move."

They walked, formation a tight triangle with Shepard at the fore, but they encountered no enemies, no survivors, no corpses--no _people._ The heat was dry and nearly unbearable, and Shepard's suit was doing little to help; Garrus didn't look fazed, and she would hazard to say Thane actually seemed a touch livelier than normal, eyes wide and alert. She'd had to stop them a few times to take a drink of water, before they approached the veil on the outside of the forest.

Even from a range where Shepard couldn't _see_ what was happening, her guts clenched and told her to run away; the smell of sizzling, burnt meat and fuel cut a swath through the gentle scents of plants and nearby seawater. The forest was beautiful and calm, painted in vibrant greens and dappled with brilliant sunlight, but this was a violent smell, one that ran through it like a vein of ugly, alien metal in otherwise gorgeous stone.

They smelled it, too. Garrus shook his head and muttered a cuss. Thane was casing the place, looking around to distract himself.

Haltingly, Shepard reached out and parted the canopy of draping of velveteen vines that dangled before them and obscured the rest of the landscape. She was met by a blast of refracted light so bright that Garrus grunted and she heard Thane utter a sudden sound of pain and stumble back a step. She looked up, looked _way_ up, and felt both her heart and her stomach sink.

Smoke rose in giant plume from the frigate, a towering, creaking monstrosity of smashed metal plating and glass that leaned against a cluster of fallen trees like a drunkard, trying to keep its balance against something equally as unstable. The vessel had carved an unnatural thicket hundreds of feet wide, cleared of foliage and littered with broken, fallen pieces of debris. It sat in a deep trench that had been plowed into the soft earth starting some miles away, she assumed, partially from the girth of the scar it had left in its wake, lined by a shaggy canopy of crushed trees. Half of its hind end was missing, the burnt edges and screen-door gridwork of stripped hull plating glinting in the sun. The smoke was most likely rising from a crater, somewhere far, far away. This wasn't even _close_ to being Ground Zero.

"Are you seeing what _I'm_ seeing?" Garrus asked, disbelief in his voice.

"A hull breach. It was shot down." Thane responded.

"Let's look around before we jump to conclusions," Shepard replied, creeping forward through the brush. Twigs snapped underfoot, and Thane gave them a thoughtful frown. "Are we sure there's no engine issues that could have damaged the ship from the inside? Maybe a coupling came loose, or a bad reaction--"

Through the still, chirping air came a sharp _zap_, and Thane was spun by a thumping blow to his shoulder, stumbling back a heavy step and landing in a graceless kneel. He scrambled a step or two and heaved himself to the left as the shots started flying; Garrus dove to the right, and Shepard fell onto her belly between them, covering her head. She saw Thane flatten his back against a tree trunk and check his shoulder for injuries, but there was no wound. His jacket sizzled, a golden ring of burnt leather and flat, greasy fire spreading over his chest. He stripped his jacket off, threw it onto the forest floor, and stomped the fire out. He'd refused to wear armor for good reason; it severely cut down his reaction time and agility, and though they were near superhuman, those were all Thane had, in a fight. As a result his shields, projected from his omni-tool, were flimsy and could only take one or two shots to the head or torso before they'd fall. Good in Thane's line of work where a single bullet was a mistake that didn't get repeated often; extremely bad in protracted battles.

"We've got hostiles," Garrus said, peering up over the fallen trunk behind which he'd found sanctuary. His blue glass eyepiece beeped and clicked, and a spray of data began scrolling down over it. "Looks like seven or eight, all Blue Suns, all headed this way."

"Any heavies?" Shepard asked, groping her back and grabbing the barrel of her sniper rifle. The weapon unfolded as she removed it, and she released the latch holding the tripod's legs flat before setting it on the ground.

"Two." Garrus replied. "They see us. They're trying to get a bead."

Shepard nodded. "On three, then."

Thane and Garrus glanced at each other over her head, and exchanged a look of recognition. Garrus climbed to a low kneel, cradling his assault rifle against his belly. Thane raised one hand to waist-height, fingers outstretched. His lower arm flared a brilliant azure blue, the energy roiling off of his skin like a plume of flames. He leaned to the side behind the tree, like a man eavesdropping into the distance.

"One..." Shepard leaned her head down, adjusted the zoom on her scope. Faces came into focus.

"Two..." She scanned--there was a single Legionnaire, an officer. He had a mole on his cheek, under his eye. They were moving, coming towards her position. She aimed ahead of him slightly, used the mole as a bullseye. She let herself feel her heart beating against the forest floor, timed her shot between pumps.

On three, his head exploded like an overripe melon, scattering stringy chunks of gore over the heavy on his left. The mercenaries instinctively threw up arms to shield themselves, ducked their heads away, dropped to holding positions behind cover--at the moment, a shaved piece of fallen hull debris to their left. At the same moment, the two men on Shepard's flanks bolted forward, suddenly ignorant or perhaps just disregardful of the safety of cover, thumping along the forest floor like some strange breed of bounding deer, running as fast as their legs would carry them. They hurdled fallen trunks, ducked under errant tree limbs, never losing a beat with each other; Shepard watched them set to work with a satisfied smile before leaning her head down again.

_ That's my boys. _She thought. _Get some._

_

* * *

_

Garrus loped low, covering ground with long strides; Thane was off like a shot, a black whipcrack against the blindingly green backdrop. Truth be told, most were surprised the ease with which Garrus and Thane had hammered out the kinks in their respective fighting styles and adapted to each others' presence; they worked as smoothly as two men who hadn't been trained together could, and then some. Thane showed a real penchant for setting up the perfect shot with biotics or maneuvering, and Garrus--well, Garrus was a master at _taking_ the perfect shot, if he could be so bold. Battle was an art, people said, but Garrus thought of it as more of an arrangement--and while he could tickle the ivories, Thane was turning out to be a hell of a composer.

The smaller man sped out in front of him, rearing back his glowing hand as if to slap an unknown enemy. Three of the Blue Suns were yanked from their positions, thrown high into the air; Thane spun to the side, taking cover behind a nearby tree. Garrus braced his feet and slid, sidelong, aimed his gun high and rattled off a clip's worth of ammunition. The bodies that fell to the ground were riddled with bulletholes, smoking and missing important parts.

Without so much as an exchanged look, the two men traded positions in a well-practiced position swap, Garrus weaving behind Thane to cover to reload and Thane turning to sprawl low in the brush, obscured by its dense foliage. He watched like a predator, hands on the forest floor.

"FALL BACK!" They heard one of the mercenaries yell, all of a sudden their new leader, and the new leader of a unit of three rather than seven. "They've got a biotic! FALL BA--"

A slug from a faroff gun cut short her orders, catching her dead in the center of the helmet, smashing a small spray of broken glass out from its visor like a whiff of glitter. Garrus looked back and could see Shepard crawling on elbows and knees with her rifle cradled against her chest and smoking. He wasn't exactly big on humans, paunchy and rectangular as they were, but there was no stronger aphrodisiac than seeing a woman drop an enemy from hundreds of paces. One shot, one kill. Beautiful.

Garrus turned and zoomed his eyepiece, mandibles twitching in concentration. Thane unholstered his pistol, held it at shoulder height and pointed the barrel towards the sky. He closed his eyes while he waited; Garrus assumed he was listening.

"We've got one heavy and one regular enlisted." Garrus looked down at Thane. "Hundred and twenty feet." The drell opened his eyes, and they shared a meaningful look. "You know what we have to do."

Thane's eyes flashed with grim intensity, and he raised a fist. Garrus joined him; they shook them three times, as if pounding down an imaginary nail with the underside, and Garrus came out with his hand flat, fingers pointed. Thane's hand came down and remained a tightly-balled fist; he observed this and cussed, quietly.

_Yes!_

"Ha ha," Garrus said, baring a wide grin, and Thane threw himself prone as a missile, whistling and leaving a rude trail of grey smoke, slammed into the other side of Garrus' tree. It shook down a rain of insects upon the hard metal and chitin of Garrus' carapace, the canopy above him and trunk on which he leaned wobbling, suddenly unstable.

"I can become better at rock-paper-scissors," Thane warned him, "you cannot become better at being a coward."

"You're just mad because _I_ always win."

Thane turned wordlessly from him and dashed forward, firing as he went. When Shepard approached from behind, joined him in the cover of his tree and began to talk, Garrus raised a finger to his mouth, ushering her silence. A scream rang out in the distance, and she blinked.

"Shh." Garrus said, zooming in again to catch the action in detail. "This is the good part."

* * *

The bridge was silent. With the Captain gone, there was nobody skulking about, peering over shoulders. Serena hadn't been a pilot long--only about six months, in fact--but she was the best in her class, and had been incredibly proud to be selected for this mission. Her family had been proud, too; her mom cried, made her swear she'd be careful. Her dad had simply clapped her on the shoulder, with a stoic smile and misty eyes. An actual honest-to-God pilot... this was so _cool._

She'd read the dossiers, too, did her homework; the Captain was moody, sure, prone to the stoic grimness only men who weren't actually grim could attain in stressful situations. Not everybody on board was loyal, yet, either, considering his relative youth, but he was sincere, no bones about that. Plus, he had all the time in the world to earn their loyalty. This was a two-year tour, anyway.

Plus, he was cute. Like... _really really _cute. She thought he was Italian. Or maybe Iranian... either way, whatever he was, it was _fine_ with her. She'd heard he didn't exactly mind fraternization rules, but that might be pushing it, at least for right now.

"Any word on those orders?" She called over her shoulder, pulling the dual-pronged steering stick to the right, circling for yet another go round. The _Iwojima_ was a beauty of a ship, smooth and delicate, and she cut like a knife through butter, purred. No kickback at all. These drop-and-go missions were by and large just that; let loose the hounds of war and then drift around for an hour or so, making idle chatter with a woman old enough to be your mom.

There really wasn't any reason to worry. Alenko had it handled. He was a war hero, for crying out loud.

"Not you too," Moore replied, slumping forward with her hands on her forehead.

"That's a no, huh?" Serena giggled, "I guess it'll come in its own time."

Something caught her eye, dragged her away from the conversation. Her laughter ended abruptly, and her eyes scanned the holographic tracking panel in tense confusion.

"What's up?" The Ensign asked, slinking away from her station with her coffee in hand. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Maybe I have..." Serena said, trailing off. "One of the unmarked ships just disappeared. There were three, now we've got two."

The Ensign took a sip of coffee. "Maybe they got scared. Bolted. Competition's stiff."

Serena couldn't coax her stomach into unknotting, the prickle on the back of her neck to smooth down. "I don't think--"

It reappeared, but not on her scanner. Out of the picture window before them, it suddenly appeared, melting out of the inky blackness before them over the visible pie-slice of _Alida_'s picturesque horizon; a ship, long and fishlike, gleaming blue and silver.

"Oh, shit!" Moore yelled; Serena looked up, a beat too late, and jerked her controls to the side to try and avoid the column of blazing orange that tore the Iwojima's left flank open, separating its fin from its body in a shattered cloud of debris and fire.

In space, there were multiple ways to die. Most are unpleasant, a good number frightening, but all of them lonely. Only the fortunate few are granted a painless, immediate death; Serena was convinced, as the air was sucked from her lungs and the vacuum of a breached internal pressure system took Moore with it, that she would simply suffocate, perhaps be ripped apart between the feuding forces of her seatbelt and the savage pressure trying to pull her out, into the black.

Then she saw the orange light fire up once again from a undermounted cannon, and her whole world was shades of yellow and red, until she ceased to have a world at all.

The Iwojima, now headless, canted forward and drifted in a lazy, dejected arc towards _Alida's _atmosphere, before being pulled into it by the unseen hands of gravity.

* * *

They stood, looking up at the craft, and Thane felt particularly naked without his jacket. What he wore under it amounted to a leather tank top that buckled together at the stomach, and little insects were buzzing around his head, landing on his shoulders, crawling on his arms.

He _liked_ that jacket. It was his favorite, and they'd burned it. Troublesome.

"She definitely looks _blown_ apart," Garrus said, pacing, tapping the place lips should be with a finger. "The hull curves in, not out, and if an internal explosion had gotten her, it would have melted the grating first, not the plates on the outside. Looks like some kind of carnifex cannon, too, maybe with a pulse booster... the curling's too tight to be anything but."

Garrus was apparently under the impression they knew what he was talking about. Thane was under the impression that Garrus was more astute than he'd given him credit for, and would perhaps have to be more watchful.

_He used to be a policeman,_ Thane thought, and was surprised that C-Sec had managed to recruit someone who had actually known what they were doing--unsurprisingly, they'd lost him as well. Thane didn't consider himself a bad man nor was he naive enough to assume Garrus completely _good_ man, but it was... unusual that they'd come from such violently different ends of the commonly accepted spectrum of intention to meet somewhere in the middle, dabbling in the same shades of gray. What a strange place universe was.

"This doesn't make any sense." Shepard had her helmet off and was mopping her brow with the back of a hand. There was no material to absorb the sweat, so it rolled down the hard casing of her glove. "They got here before we did, meaning either they did the shooting or shot the people that did the shooting, and then came down shortly after."

"But what would Blue Suns do with batarian slaves?" Garrus asked, with a shrug. "Sell them to a broker?"

"Sell them to _someone,_" She agreed, at a loss otherwise.

"Unlikely," Thane interjected, "batarians mark their slaves. Partially to destroy morale, prevent escape attempts. Acquiring a marked batarian slave is tantamount to theft of personal property, something not tolerated in their society. Nobody would buy them but other batarians."

Garrus gave Thane a look that he recognized as assessment. Unasked questions were dancing in his eyes, his thoughtful posture. "And the government has already offered to 'buy' them back. You sound like you... _know_ a bit more about this than we do."

Thane then felt Shepard's eyes on him, briefly. He shrugged, a gesture that was more neutral than he felt. "I've some experience."

Garrus nodded, but didn't seem altogether satisfied. He let it drop regardless.

"Is it standard procedure to offer a reward for a downed batarian slave ship?" Shepard asked, leaning with a hand on her hip. She was ruffling the strange shock of dark hair on her head, trying to shake bugs out of it as they landed. "They could be sitting on the slaves and waiting for a bigger reward."

"It would explain why they're still combing the wreckage." Garrus remarked. "More slaves, more money."

"The batarian government goes to great lengths to conceal its connection to the slave rings." Thane brushed a chittering thing with many eyes off of his shoulder, and swatted at it when it began to buzz around his head. "The institution of slavery is not looked down upon, but criminality in its execution would suggest the galaxy's distaste for it justified."

There was a stretch of quiet, which broke with a deep chuckle.

"Is that a 'no', Master Yoda?" Garrus asked, and Shepard looked at him with a comical start of surprise. He removed the canteen lashed to his hip, buckled down to prevent noise. "What?"

Thane smiled, but didn't laugh. "Forgive me... brevity is not my strong suit. No, I don't remember this happening before."

"Talking's fine by me." Garrus replied, taking a drink from his canteen as he tilted his head to look up at the fallen vessel. His mouth closed around the neck of the bottle and Thane could see his teeth, long and daggerlike, through the gaps in his plating on the side of his mouth; a little water dribbled out and he wiped it away, screwed the cap back on. "Better than being alone with this one outside the _Normandy_. You practically have to slap her to get her to make any noise."

This time, Thane and Shepard _did _exchange a look, behind Garrus' back. Shepard's look was a glare, but a playful one, suggesting repercussions might be in order were he to say what they were both thinking.

He didn't. "Silence is golden, as they say." She gave him a thumbs up, apparently satisfied with his discretionary neutrality.

Thane shook his head. _What a silly situation._

"Yeah, but sho--ahh--_"_

Garrus didn't have to point out the object prompting his gape-mouthed reaction; they both looked up when he started stammering, and saw it. In the lower layers of _Alida_'s atmosphere, among the hazy blue slice of sky visible through the everpresent tree canopy, there came a tumbling midday shooting star, plummeting towards the surface of the planet, parting the clouds into whiffs that looked like white smoke. Tiny, circular orange-and-yellow explosions bloomed along the sides of the star, and it spun, nose down, pirouetting towards the ground.

"A vessel?" Thane asked, voice laced with disbelief. He jogged to Garrus' side, and shielded his brow with a hand to get a better look.

"I want a reading on that ship _right now_," Shepard barked, previous lightheartedness forgotten; Garrus' hand flew to the bridge of his eyepiece, dialing the magnification up. She joined Thane at his side and they all watched, helpless and gawking, as it spun. It left a comet trail of cloudstuff in its wake, surrounded by a halo of what looked like light, but Thane knew was pressure. It wasn't the right pulse to be light.

"It says, I-W-O-J-I-M-A and a number I can't make out." Garrus mumbled, frustrated.

"The SSV _Iwojima_," Shepard said, voice thin and dreamlike. "An Alliance ship, alright... _fuck._"

Thane thought for a brief moment on the gravity of this, watching as the frigate tumbled past the treeline and out of sight. Garrus was the first to speak.

"Wait--what if it... is this thing _safe? _How far are we from the--"

A strangled, broken sound drew his attention to Shepard; he saw her eyes go saucer-wide, and she started, took a step back.

As if in response, in the distance came a great _boom, _a sound so loud and so deep that the only thing he'd had to compare it to were the explosions of early childhood, bombs and mines from neighboring countries dropped on homes and buildings so close that you only realized you'd survived it after the ringing filled your ears and people started screaming.

The ground shook back and forth, not a tremble but an upheaval. The trees around them creaked with protest, bending at unnatural angles, blocking the sun, shaking leaves and weakened limbs onto them in a rain. Thane's feet dropped wide to try to keep his balance but were quaked out from underneath him, sending him crashing to the forest floor. He heard Garrus yell a cuss after being dropped onto his side.

There was a great splash, the sound of a hundred angry waterfalls, and then a deep rumbling--under his feet, around his head. Thane crawled to a stand and his spine ran cold with a sudden, extended drag of mortal fear. They froze in place, staring at each other with wide eyes, parted lips; the sound persisted, built, soared. It was a great and loud thrashing noise, the angry mother of the hardest rain he had ever felt in his life.

"We need to get _away_ from this thing," Shepard yelled over the mounting noise, reaching down and hauling Garrus to his feet, "both of you, out of here, _move_!"

The ship before them creaked, the metallic groaning of hundreds of tons of metal canting, leaning to the side, breaking a groove in the soil that held it in place, breaking the spines of trees so thick and old they may as well have been buildings in their own right.

"I said _move_!!" Shepard hollered, turning and giving Thane a great shove that just about sent him to the ground again. "GO GO GO GO!!"

Garrus took off like a shot before them, ducking through the trees and leaping over a stump, disappearing into the green. Thane followed, running as fast as his feet would carry him, and he heard Shepard at his heel, her boots thumping hard against the soft ground. She was nowhere near as fast as either of them--Garrus had a head start and much longer limbs, and drell like Thane were built for ground speed; their legs were overdeveloped compared to humans, a fact he'd abused many times in the past, while chasing or being chased.

She started falling behind. The sound of her footfalls faded into the brush and Thane looked back, slowed by inches. She saw this and waved him forward fiercely, telling him to go, dammit, _go_.

It wouldn't be enough to save him. There was a monumental crash, and the fierce, earthshaking din of so much water that it caused another mini-earthquake, knocking him forward, sprawling onto his knees and elbows, drawing blood.

He had only time enough to look back over a shoulder and thinkthat, perhaps, his deeds were considerable enough that he did not _need_ to be sent to the sea--Kalahira herself was coming to take him. Coming to take all of them.

He saw the water swallow Shepard in a frothy wall of white. She threw her arms up as the mercenaries had, the body's instinctive defense mechanism, no matter how outmatched or ineffectual.

The water hit him like a truck, picked him up, took his breath from him, whipped him forward. Thane felt himself slam into a tree, felt the give of bones he didn't know how to identify under the sudden crush of pain and shock, and then everything was black.


End file.
